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THE 




4HURCH: 



WAY OF JUSTIFICATION; 



HOLY COMMUNION. 



IN THREE DISCOURSES. 



Ret. K GREENWALD, D.D., 

PASTOR OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY 
TRINITY, LANCASTER, PA, 



PHILADELPHIA. 
LUTHERAN BOOK STORE 

No. 117 North Sixth Street. 
18 76, 







Tub Library 
Congress 



of 



WASHINGTON 



v>- 



^1*° 

**&1 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, 

By E. GREENWALD, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



SHERMAN & CO., PRINTERS, 
PHILADELPHIA. 



gggjf -w#s§ 




PEEFACE. 



These Discourses, delivered on several occa- 
sions of public interest in the Church, are here 
presented in a permanent form, in the hope 
that they may not be unproductive of good re- 
sults, in aiding our church members to give an 
answer to the inquirer, concerning the Church 
we love, the Faith we hold, and the Holy Com- 
munion we receive; and in promoting, above 
all else, the glory of our dear Lord Jesus 
Christ, of whose Church we are members, by 
whose "Righteousness we are justified, and in 
whose Holy Sacrament we have blessed fellow- 
ship with His own divine life. 



Lancaster, Pa., 

October 31, 1875. 



E. G. 



THE TRUE CHURCH.* 



"I speak concerning Christ and the Church."— Eph. 5 : 32. 
"Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old com- 
mandment which ye had from the beginning."— 1 Johx 2 : 7. 

Much stress is laid by the members of the Church 
of Eome upon the question of the True Church, 
and very properly, too, for the question is one of 
great importance. It is not a matter of indiffer- 
ence whether we belong to the True Church, or 
not. Every one is interested in learning the marks 
of the True Church, and none should rest satisfied 
to be in any other than the True Church. 

The question of the True Church has had very 
great prominence given to it, of late, in the minds 
of Christians, both in Europe and America. The 



* Preached in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Centreville, Pa., Rev. 
B. F. Apple, Pastor, October 31, 1874. 

(5) 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 



discussion of it is met with in the ponderous volume, 
in the winged tract, and in the weekly paper. I 
have met with it in numerous instances, among 
educated and uneducated persons, when visiting 
in different, and quite opposite, sections of a very 
large parish. The question has, in every instance, 
been urged upon the attention of our members by 
their neighbors belonging to the Church of Rome. 
In every instance, they have asserted that theirs 
alone is the True Church ; that ours is not the 
True Church; that they are safe because they 
belong to the True Church ■ and the effort is in- 
sidiously and persistently made to cause our mem- 
bers to feel unsafe and dissatisfied because they do 
not belong to the True Church. So often has this 
question come to my attention, of late, as to leave 
the conviction on the mind that it is a part of a 
general and well- matured plan of operations by 
which to attack the Church of the Reformation. 
I feel that the question deserves attention, and 
ought to be met in a thorough and candid discus- 
sion of it, for the information of our members, and 
to enable them to parry the attacks made upon 
their faith and their Church, It is particularly an 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 



appropriate theme on a centennial occasion such 
as this,* and in view of the anniversary of the 
Reformation by Luther, which the Church always 
celebrates on the 31st of October. It is, at such a 
time, very timely and very appropriate to inquire 
into the reasons why we believe that we are the 
True Church of Christ. I shall discuss the theme 
with my accustomed earnestness and plainness of 
speech, but whilst I do so firmly, I shall not forget 
to do it kindly. 

I shall speak, as on such an occasion I have a 
right to do, of the Lutheran Church. It is the 
Church of the Reformation. For many years the 
Augsburg Confession was the only Protestant 
Confession that was everywhere recognized as 
such. The Protestant Church was the Lutheran 
Church. It is much to be regretted, for the credit 
and for the interests of Protestantism, that the 
Augsburg Confession was not everywhere retained 
as the only Protestant Confession, and the Church 
of the Reformation the only Protestant Church, 



* The occasion on which this discourse was preached was the Centen- 
nial Festival of the Lutheran Church, at Centreville, held during the 
week including the 31st of October. 



g THE TRUE CHURCH. 

so as now, and always, to present a united front 
to the powerful hierarchy of the Church of Rome. 
But whilst I shall speak of the Church of the 
Reformation directly, and defend its claims to be 
the True Church, I feel that I am defending the 
claims of our common Protestantism that holds 
true Christian faith, cultivates true Christian life, 
and practices true Christian duties. I am sorry 
that I must say, in all candor, that not all that 
calls itself Protestant, possesses this character. 
There is some Protestantism that is very un- 
sound in doctrine, and that preaches quite another 
Gospel than that which Christ, and Paul, and 
Luther preached. It is a species of semi-infidelity, 
boasts itself of its rationalism, and makes human 
reason, and not God's Word, the rule of its faith. 
It takes away the divinity from Christ, and re- 
nounces salvation by the atonement on the cross; 
is proud, sensational, worldly, unchurchly, un sac- 
ramental, schismatical, and human. It professes 
to be Protestant and free, but it is no credit to 
either Protestantism or true liberty. It has done, 
and is doing, more to lead some men to conclude 
that Protestantism is a failure, and the Reforma- 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 



tion a mistake, than all the efforts of either Eo- 
raanists or Infidels. In, therefore, offering argu- 
ments in behalf of the Church of the Reformation 
as being the True Church, I do not include such a 
spurious Protestantism as this. On the contrary, 
whatever I may think of the claims of the Church 
of Rome to be the True Church, I am sure that 
this spurious, half-infidel Protestantism, is not the 
True Church. 

In order that we may have a proper compre- 
hension of the whole subject, we must first inquire, 
What is the~Church ? 

The answer is : "The Church is the assembly of 
all believers among whom the Gospel is preached 
in its purity, and the Sacraments are administered 
according to the Gospel/' 

This is the definition given in our Augsburg 
Confession, and it is the true one. The Greek 
word is "Eeclesia," and means an assembly, a con- 
gregation, a community, a convocation of people 
called out from the rest of mankind. Ek, kaleo, 
means called out, and was used by the Greeks to 
mean the same as our words convoke, or called 
together. It is, therefore, rightly called in our 



JO THE TRUE CHURCH. 

Augsburg Confession, "An assembly." As there 
are many assemblies, or organizations of different 
sorts, it next tells us what kind of an assembly it 
is. It is an " Assembly of believers." 

The Church must, of course, be an assembly " of 
believers.'' It is not an assembly of unbelievers 
of any sort. The kind of believers that constitute 
the Christian Church must, of course, be Christian 
believers; believers in Christianity, believers in 
Christ, believers in the true Gospel, believers in 
the true doctrines of the Word of God. All such 
believers in the faith and doctrines of Christ, and 
that associate together as confessors of that faith, 
compose the True Christian Church, 

The essential characteristics of a True Church, 
according to this definition, is that " the Gospel 
must be preached in its purity, and the sacraments 
administered according to the divine institution." 

1. There must be the true doctrine. 

Impure doctrine makes an impure Church, There 
cannot be a sound Church if the faith is unsound. 
Soundness of the faith, and soundness of the 
Church, are absolutely identical and necessary to 



THE TRUE CHURCH. \\ 

each other, A Church, like a home, is constituted, 
not so much by the bricks and timbers of the 
house, as by the people that inhabit it. If a Church 
was a sound Church whilst it held sound doctrine, 
it may, and will, become an unsound Church if it 
becomes unsound in the faith. A Church is a true 
Church if it holds true doctrines. If it holds false 
doctrines, and tolerates unchristian practices, it is 
a false, and not a true Church. It is the nature 
of the faith, and of the practice that flows from 
that faith, that constitutes the nature of the 
Church. It is true or false, just as its faith and 
practice are true or false* The Jewish Church, in 
the time of Abraham, and Moses, and David, and 
Isaiah, and Daniel, was a true Church, but In the 
time of the Pharisees, when it crucified the Saviour, 
and persecuted the apostles, it was no longer a true 
Church. The Churches in Asia Minor were true 
Churches when Peter wrote to them his first 
Epistle, and could speak of them as " elect of 
God" " having faith unto salvation/' "being be- 
gotten again unto a lively hope," " having a faith 
more precious than gold," " being built up a spirit- 
ual house on the chief corner-stone, elect, precious/' 



12 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

which is Christ. But those of them were no longer 
true Churches, when, in his second Epistle, he was 
compelled to denounce their " false teachers," their 
" damnable heresies/' their "denying the Lord that 
bought them," their " having eyes full of adultery," 
" that could not cease from sin;" and to call them, 
" Cursed children, which have forsaken the right 
way, and are gone astray, following the way of 
Baalim son of Bosor." The Church at Eome was 
a True Church, when Paul was its pastor, and 
such saints as Priscilla and Aquila, Andronicus 
and Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, and Urbane, 
and Apelles, and Narcissus, and Persis, and Eufus, 
and a host of others, true believers, and sound 
Christians, were its members. But it ceased to 
be a True Church when the Infidel Leo X. was 
Pope, Tetzel was seller of indulgences, forgive- 
ness of sins was sold for money, justification by 
works was substituted for justification by faith, 
the worship of Mary superseded the worship of 
Christ, penance took the place of repentance, 
and the grossest corruption prevailed everywhere 
among popes, priests, monks, nuns, and people. 
For a Church to be true, its faith, and practice, 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 13 

and religious life must be true. If these are false, 
and untrue, and corrupt, it ceases to be a true 
Church. Every one can understand, and must 
admit, the force of these facts, and the conclusive- 
ness of these reasons. 

2. This definition of the True Church requires the 
Sacraments to be rightly administered. 

There must be the true number, the true doc- 
trine concerning their nature, and they must be 
rightly administered to the proper persons. They 
are two and not seven, as to their number. They 
have each two elements, an earthly and a heav- 
enly, or a visible and invisible, that are not 
changed into each other, but remain two natures 
whilst constituting one Sacrament, and, therefore, 
there can be no transubstantiation. They must 
be administered to all the communicants alike, in 
both kinds, to the laity as well as to the priest, 
so that all that commune receive the complete 
Sacrament. We commit an unwarrantable inno- 
vation upon Christ's institution if we add five 
Sacraments to the two which he instituted. We, 
with unwarrantable presumption, change one of 



14 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

the Sacraments altogether if we take away the 
bread, or which is the same thing, transubstantiate 
it into the substance of the body of Christ, so as 
to leave no bread whatever remaining. And we, 
with censurable boldness, defraud the congrega- 
tion of a part of the Sacrament when we take 
from them the cup and give them the bread only. 
In all these respects the Sacrament is not rightly 
administered according to the institution and pat- 
tern of Christ, the divine Founder of the Church. 
The True Church adheres most strictly, in all 
points, to Christ's institutions, because the Sacra- 
ments are vital to the very existence of the Church. 
That Church ceases to be the True Church that 
lays its presumptuous hands upon the holy insti- 
tutions of Christ, and changes their number, their 
nature, their elements, or their subjects. 

This definition of the Church, as laid down in 
our venerable Augsburg Confession, is so certainly 
sound and correct, that no opponent, however dis- 
posed, can by any possibility refute it. Sound 
doctrine and the divine sacraments, truly believed, 
and professed, and held, and practiced, as Christ, 
the great Head of the Church, has himself taught, 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 15 

and ordained, and commanded, and instituted them, 
are necessary to constitute the True Church. A 
great and powerful external organization called a 
church, does not constitute a true Christian Church, 
if the true faith, and the true sacraments, and true 
Christian life, are wanting. Every one who gives 
the subject the smallest consideration will admit 
the correctness of this position. 

Mohammedanism is not the True Church. Why 
not? Not for the want of a large and powerful 
external organization, that is just about as old as 
the Pope of Eome. Mohammedanism has its pope, 
called the Caliph, who is the " acknowledged suc- 
cessor of Mohammed, and is invested with supreme 
dignity and power in all things relating 1 to religion 
and civil polity." As the Pope claims to be the 
vicegerent of Christ, and the visible head of the 
Christian church on earth, so the Caliph claims to 
be the successor and representative on earth of 
Mohammed as the Prophet of God. and the head 
of the church of all good Mussulmans. The Caliphs 
claim their dignity, and power, and position, al- 
most in the very words in which the Pope claims 
his. And their organization is immensely vast 



16 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

and powerful, for there is very little difference 
between the number of adherents of the Caliph 
and that of the Pope. But this external organi- 
zation, and headship, and numbers, and powerful 
claims, do not constitute Mohammedanism the 
True Church. Why not? The answer is plain. 
It has not the true faith, nor the right sacraments, 
nor the correct practice. 

We may cite a very apposite case much nearer 
home. Mormonism claims to be the True Church. 
It has its pope, its organization, its members, its 
ordinances, and is such a wealthy and powerful 
institution, that it has been able to defy the laws 
and government of the United States. But Mor- 
monism is not the True Church. Why not? The 
answer is plain. It has not the true faith, nor the 
right sacraments, nor correct practice. These 
constitute the True Church, and where they are 
wanting, the True Church is wanting; and no 
organization of whatever kind, that has not the 
true Christian faith, nor the true Christian sacra- 
ments, nor the true Christian practice that results 
therefrom, is the True Christian Church. 

We must distinguish between the nature of 



THE TRUE CHURCH. YJ 

things. Mere names and outward appearances 
are not enough. We must go into the interior of 
all institutions, whether civil or religious, and 
ascertain what are their principles, their nature, 
their real character, and we must judge them 
from what they really are. 

Let us now go more into detail, in the examina- 
tion of the claims of the Church of the Refor- 
mation, to be the True Church, as over against 
the Church of Rome. It must be borne in mind, 
that we are not the aggressors in this contest, nor 
are we taking the offensive; but we are acting 
strictly on the defensive, and are asserting claims 
that are being denied and called in question every 
da} T . We are simply maintaining our right to 
exist, in answer to those who are everywhere — 
in public and in private — denying that we have 
any right to live. If our claim to be the True 
Christian Church cannot be maintained, then we 
ought not to live. A false or untrue Church has 
no right to exist. 

What, then, are our claims to be the True 
Churcli ? 



18 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

1. We are the True Church, because we have the 
True Head of the Church, 

There is, and can be, but one Head of the 
Christian Church. That Head is Christ. It is a 
divine and not a human Head. JSTo man can be 
the Head of the Christian Church. It is a divine 
institution, and, therefore, must have a divine 
Head. It cannot have two heads, the one divine 
and the other human. This would be a two- 
headed monster, and not the True Christian 
Church. Nowhere has Christ given us the least 
intimation that He has appointed any human 
head, any vicegerent, any representative man, 
any one to act in His stead on earth, as the Head 
of the Church. He occupies that position, and 
He alone; and He has nowhere announced that 
He has vacated that position, or given that honor 
to another. It is contended that Peter was made 
the head of the church, and that his successors 
are the earthly representatives of Christ. But 
the well-known, and oft-quoted, passage, says 
nothing of the kind. " Thou art Peter, and on 
this rock I will build my Church." Even if we 
gran the interpretation which our Eomish friends 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 19 

put upon it, the passage says nothing of the kind. 
It speaks of "Peter," but it says nothing of his 
successors. It speaks of a "rock" on which the 
church will be " built," but the rocky foundation 
is a very different thing from the " head" of 
the Church. The passage says nothing about a 
" head." The builder is the head, not the founda- 
tion on which he builds. Even if Peter was meant 
personally, and he was called the rock on which 
the Church was to be built, it would only say, 
what is elsewhere said, that the Church is " built 
on the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being 
the chief corner-stone " It would only say that 
the Church is founded on the doctrine of Christ 
and his apostles, which we all believe, and which 
none disputes. Even then, allowing the popish 
interpretation of this passage, it says nothing 
whatever of a human head of the Church — of a 
vicegerent of Christ on earth — of a pope to whom 
the whole Christian Church in the world must be 
subject^ and without whom there is no True 
Church. But even this cannot be allowed. 

It will be interesting to my hearers to learn 
what is said on this passage by intelligent and 



20 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

candid Eoman writers themselves. It is well 
known, that the decree of the Infallibility of the 
Pope, voted by the council that held its sessions 
in Rome a few years ago, has met with much 
opposition from intelligent Roman Catholics them- 
selves, such as Dr. Bollinger, Hyacinthe, Reinkens, 
and others. Several of the most learned of its 
opponents within the Romish Church have pub- 
lished a w^ork entitled u The Pope and the Coun- 
cil, by Janus/' It is a work of great ability. I 
know you will give your closest attention, whilst 
I quote from it the following passage, p. 74. " Of 
all the fathers [of the first GOO years after Christ, 
p. 76] who interpret these passages in the Gospels, 
Matthew 16, 18 — John, 21, 17— the words of Christ 
to Peter, not a single one applies them to the Roman 
bishops as Peter's successors. How many fathers 
have busied themselves with these texts, yet not 
one of them, whose commentary we possess — 
Origen, a. d. 230 ; Chrysostom, a. d. 370; Hilary, 
a. d. 360 ; Augustine, A. d. 390; Cyril, a. d. 350 ; 
Theodoret, a. d. 400 — and those whose interpreta- 
tions are collected in catenas, has dropped the 
faintest hint, that the primacy of Rome is the 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 21 

consequence of the commission and promise to 
Peter! Not one of them has explained the rock, 
or foundation on which Christ would -build His 
Church, of the office given to Peter to be trans- 
mitted to his successors; but they understood by 
it either Christ himself, or Peter's confession of 
faith in Christ, or both together. Or, else they 
thought Peter was the foundation equally with all 
the apostles — the twelve being together the foun- 
dation stones of the church. (Eev. 21 : 14, — : And 
the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and 
in them the names of the twelve apostles of the 
Lamb.') The fathers could the less recognize in 
the power of the keys, and the power of binding 
and loosing, any special prerogative or lordship of 
the Eoman bishop, inasmuch as — what is obvious 
to any one at first sight — they did not regard a 
power first given to Peter, and afterwards con- 
ferred in precisely the same words on all the 
apostles (Matthew 16:19; 18:18) as anything 
peculiar to him, or hereditary in the line of 
Eoman bishops." 

So far the book from which I quote. It is not 
often that we meet with such candid statements 



22 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

as these; and it proves that the truth of history 
will force itself to be heard from the lips of candid 
and intelligent men, who love truth more than 
party. It establishes the position with which I 
set out, that whilst we refuse to acknowledge the 
jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome, we are, never- 
theless, the True Church, because we have Christ, 
the true Head of the Church, and are built upon 
the true foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
Peter among the rest. 

2. We are the True Old Church, because we have 
the True Church succession. 

Luther was not a schismatic, nor is the Lutheran 
Church a sect. The Church of the Reformation 
is the true and proper development of the true 
Christian Church life, and in the way of the True 
Church succession. The true old Church arose, at 
the Reformation, out of the errors and corruptions 
that had loaded it down for ages, and shaking 
them off, appeared the same old True Church, 
cleansed and purified. The Reformation was not 
a revolution so much as it was a development. 
Lather did not create the times, but the times 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 23 

created Luther. Washington did not make the 
American Revolution, but the Revolution made 
Washington. The country called for Washington, 
and he came. So it was not Luther that made 
the Reformation so much as the Church oppressed, 
and groaning, and struggling to rise, wanted a 
suitable leader to help it up, and God raised the 
true man of the times, that the times called for. 
It was the Church itself that did its own reform- 
ing. If the Church had not been struggling up 
from beneath its grievous oppressions, Luther could 
have done nothing, and his feeble voice would 
never have been heard, or would soon have been 
drowned and forgotten. In all great movements 
in Church or State, there is, first, the condition of 
things that is ripe for the movement, and then the 
right man in the right place, is always found to 
lead the movement and give it direction and suc- 
cess. Such was the glorious Reformation of the 
16th Century, known as the Lutheran Reforma- 
tion. 

It was not the rising up of one man, or a few 
men, or of one or a few Churches, in one place or 
a few places. But it was the spontaneous rising 



24 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

up of hundreds and thousands of men, of whole 
nations of Churches; and when the rule, and the 
errors, and the corruptions in doctrine and prac- 
tice of Rome and its pope were cast off, the regular 
routine of Church life moved on almost as unin- 
terruptedly as if nothing had occurred to disturb 
the even progress of affairs. 

There was no breaking of the succession in the 
ministry, in the Church organizations, in the ordi- 
nation of pastors, in the preaching of the Word, 
in the participation of the Sacraments, in the ad- 
ministration of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, or 
in any of the regular public and private acts of 
Christian Church life. In most of the parishes of 
Germany, the same pastors that had ministered 
to the congregations under papal rule, renouncing 
the pope and the errors of popery, remained still 
the pastors of the same people who had become 
Protestant. Their successors were educated, or- 
dained, and appointed as they had been, and the 
succession thus continued has remained to this 
day. 

This is particularly true as regards the countries 
of Sweden, of Denmark, and of Norway. Here 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 25 

the whole nation, as by one act, cast off the juris- 
diction of the Pope of Borne, and the Churches 
and pastors, almost as one man, embraced the 
Beformation. No break in the succession occurred 
anj r where. The succession was as regular as 
when one wave succeeds another; as when one 
joint of the wheat stem follows another; or as when 
the child is born to his father, and inherits the 
father's name, and the father's homestead. It was 
the spectacle of three entire nations of Churches 
rising and casting off the foul yoke that, not God ? 
but man had imposed on them, and then moving on 
in its purified Church life, as if nothing wonderful 
had occurred. It was the same old Church, the 
same line of descent, the True Church afterward 
as before, much more the True Church afterward 
than before, because it had cast off what had been 
false and untrue, and its faith and practice were 
now the pure truth of God. 

So too, we may cite the case of the Church of 
England. The 39 Articles and the Liturgy of the 
Church of England are almost transcripts of the 
Augsburg Confession and the Lutheran Liturgies. 
Archbishop Cranmer was in constant correspon- 



26 THE TRUE CHURCH. 



denee with Melanchthon, and earnestly invited 
him to England, and Melanchthon would have 
gone to England if the Elector of Saxony would 
have permitted him. Both the Articles and the 
Liturgy of the Church of England are mainly 
Lutheran. Here, too, there was no break in the 
succession. By one act the entire nation cast off 
the popish rule, and then moved on as it had done 
before. Bishops, presbyters, deacons, and Church 
members were the same persons the day after, that 
they had been the day before. The stream, it is 
true, rippled a little at the spot, and from a crooked 
channel it turned into a straight one, but it was, 
nevertheless, the same stream. It was the old 
stream that had run on from the time that God 
started it, and there was no break in the succes- 
sion of its waters. It was the True Old Church, 
truer because of the Reformation than it had been 
before. It lost by the Reformation, not one ele- 
ment of the True Church, but gained a much 
stronger element of truth than it had possessed 
before. 

We are, therefore, the True Church, because we 
have the true succession. The succession has not 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 27 

been interrupted. There has been no break in it. 
It is the same living tree, with its roots grounded 
away back in the good soil of Jesus and the apos- 
tles. It is the same living stream that started in 
the pool under the temple in Jerusalem. It is the 
same life which God breathed into its nostrils; it 
never ceased to breathe, and it breathes with more 
vigorous and healthy life since the Eeformation 
than it did for centuries before. 

3. We are the True Church because we have the 
true faith. 

We have the same old Apostles' Creed, says 
Luther, in his admirable and well-known disser- 
tation on the True Church, the old faith of the 
old Church that has been held, believed, repeated, 
and confessed from the beginning. Nothing has 
been taken from it, and nothing added to it; but 
we repeat it now as it was repeated from the time 
of the death of the last of the apostles. Our chil- 
dren are baptized in it now, as they were then. 
Our Catechumens ratify it at their Confirmation 
now, as they did then. And in our stated Sunday 
services we repeat it, at morning and at evening 



28 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

worship, now, as it was then. We hold to every 
article of it, and suffer no innovation therein. 
All our subsequent confessions, and catechisms, 
and symbols are only the full and complete de- 
velopment of this old Apostles' Creed of the 
Church catholic. We are, therefore, the True 
Church, because we hold the true old faith of the 
Apostles' Creed, which the True Church has held 
from the beginning. 

With the old True Church we also have the 
Nicene Creed ; and in it, with this holy church 
through the centuries, we profess our faith in 
" One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son 
of God — begotten of His Father before all worlds — 
God of God— Light of Light — very God of very 
God — begotten, not made — consubstantial with 
the Father, by whom all things were made." In 
these noble words we utter our faith and hope 
when partaking of the Holy Supper, in which He, 
who is the Life of the world, gives Himself to us 
for the nourishment of His own divine life in our 
souls. As the True Catholic Church in all ages 
has confessed this faith, we who belong to the 
same have not ceased to confess it. We are, 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 29 

therefore, parts of the body of true orthodox con- 
fessors, and members of the True Church, the 
conservator of our holy faith, by which we must 
be saved. 

We also hold, with the true old church of the 
fathers, the Athanasian Creed, as the third chief 
symbol, in which we confess concerning the God- 
head, the true doctrine of the Unity in Trinity, 
and Trinity in Unity, of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost; and concerning the Son of God, 
" who although He be God and man, is yet not 
two, but one, Christ — one, not by conversion of 
the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the 
humanity into God — one altogether — not by con- 
fusion of substance, but by unity of person." We 
have and hold this true faith as it has been held 
and professed by the True Holy Catholic Church 
in all the years of its purity; and, therefore, hav- 
ing the True old Faith, we belong to the True old 
Church of Christ. 

And we have the Augsburg Confession, which 
is the true and consistent development of the true 
old faith of the true old church. In it, we have 
not brought forth another faith, or changed any 



30 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

part of the old true faith, but have only, thereb} 7 , 
corrected the errors, and rectified the abuses, by 
which pope and priests had for so long a time cor- 
rupted the True, Holy Church of the Fathers. In 
no one point of doctrine have we, in this noble 
Augustana, departed from the faith of the Holy 
Catholic Church of the first centuries, but the 
greatest and most successful care has been taken, 
in the words themselves of this Magna Charta of 
Protestantism, "in order that it might be the 
more clearly perceived, that by us nothing is 
received, either in doctrine or ceremonies, which 
might be contrary to the Holy Scriptures, or 
opposed to the universal Christian Church. For 
it is clear, indeed, and evident, that with the 
greatest vigilance, by the help of God, we have 
been careful that no new or ungodly doctrine 
insinuate itself, spread, and prevail in our 
churches." We hold, therefore, and cherish the 
one old true faith, of the true old church, which 
was proclaimed in the beginning, and have neither 
added anything to it, nor taken anything away 
from it; and, consequently, having the true old 
Faith, we have the True old Church of God. 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 31 

4. We are the True Church, because ice have the 
True, Old, Apostolic, Christian Baptism. 

By Baptism we are incorporated into Christ, 
made members of His Church, translated from the 
Kingdom of nature into the Kingdom of grace, 
made subjects of Christ's Kingdom, and heirs of 
the heavenly inheritance. An unbaptized person 
is not a member of the Christian Church. By 
Baptism, as the divinely appointed initiatory Sac- 
rament, a person is initiated, or brought into the 
Church. This has always been so, and it is so 
now. In all mission ary operations, as well as in 
the regular parochial routine of home Church life, 
it is Baptism that initiates old and young, upon 
whom it is administered, into the Church. It was 
so with the first candidate that was baptized by 
Peter and the other apostles, on the day of Pente- 
cost, and it is so with the child, or the adult that 
has been baptized to-day. Being baptized with 
water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, it is made a member of Christ, and of the 
Christian Church. Not man's rite nor an ordin- 
ance appointed by Pope or Council, but God's own 
holy Sacrament makes us members of His Church. 



32 THE TRUE CHURCH. 



We are all so baptized. All our forefathers were 
so baptized before us. In regular, unbroken suc- 
cession, with no defective link, our baptism goes 
up from the present members of the Church, to the 
first members that were baptized on the day of 
Pentecost. It is not a new Baptism, invented by 
us, or by Luther, or invented in our day, or at the 
time of the Reformation, but it is the "selfsame 
old Baptism instituted by Christ, and in which the 
Apostles, the primitive Church, and all Christians 
after them, have ever been baptized to this day." 
— Luther. Were they thereby made members of 
the True Church ? So are we. It is the Baptism 
of the old primitive Church, it has the same effi- 
cacy now as then; it is administered in the same 
way, in the same name, and initiates now as then, 
into the same old, primitive, apostolic, true, Chris- 
tian Church. 

5. We are the True Church because we have the 
true Lord's Supper. 

We have the same two elements, the one earthly, 
and the other heavenly — the earthly being bread 
and wine, and the heavenly being the body and 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 33 



blood of Christ — as Christ himself constituted it. 
We take bread and wine as Christ did, and we say, 
" Take, eat, this is my body/' and " Take, drink ye 
all of it, this is my Blood," as Christ said. We 
believe too, as his disciples believed, as he himself 
taught us, and as they also teach, that " the cup 
w T hich we bless is the communion of the blood of 
Christ, and the bread which we break is the com- 
munion of the body of Christ." We take Christ's 
words as he uttered them, and we believe that 
which they express. We do not attempt to ex- 
plain them otherwise than according to their plain 
and obvious meaning, nor do we fritter away their 
force, by giving them an interpretation which 
makes them a mere figure of speech. It is, what 
Christ himself has made it, and as Luther in his 
Small Catechism declares it to be, " The true body 
and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the 
bread and wine, given unto us Christians to eat 
and to drink, as it was instituted by Christ him- 
self." We retain, too, the whole sacrament, for 
whilst we receive the body of Christ, we do not 
destroy the bread, as the false doctrine of tran- 
substantiation necessarily does. Neither do we 

3 



34 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

give to the lay members of the Church, only a part 
of a Sacrament, as they do who withhold the cup 
from the people. Of these false doctrines, and of 
these impious innovations, the old primitive Church 
knew nothing, but held and administered the Sac- 
rament of the Lord's Supper as we now hold con- 
cerning it, and as we now administer it. We say, 
therefore, with Luther, " We have the Holy Sac- 
rament of the Altar even as it was instituted by 
Christ himself, and as it was used by the Apostles, 
and by all Christendom after them," until the 
Church of Eome corrupted it. " We have intro- 
duced nothing new therein," but have the same 
old, pure, true body and blood, under the true 
bread and wine, as the apostles, and the true, old 
Church of Christ, always had. 

6. We are the True Church because we have the true 
ministry. 

We have the old, twofold call to the ministry. 
First, of God — " For no man taketh this honor 
unto himself, but he that is called of God as was 
Aaron/' Secondly, of the Church, for when the 
first congregation numbered only one hundred and 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 35 

twenty members at Jerusalem, and there was a 
vacancy in the apostleship occasioned by the death 
of Judas, they all "gave forth their lots, and the 
vote fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with 
the eleven apostles." Christ, who has instituted 
the office of the ministry, and who, with the other 
"gifts" which He "gave unto men when He as- 
cended up on high," included "pastors and teachers 
for the edifying of His body," the Church, still calls 
men into this holy office, and has so called them 
from the beginning. And the Church, too, which 
is the congregation of believers, having the keys 
of the kingdom given to it, and its members being 
" a royal priesthood," has the power, and has ever 
exercised it, to call and ordain ministers to preach 
the Gospel, and to administer the holy Sacraments. 
This twofold call, which the old True Church had, 
we still have, and have always had. We have, 
therefore, the true ministry of the True Church. 
But we accept no lordly pope as vicegerent of 
Christ on earth, for Christ appointed none, and the 
True old Church knew of none. Nor do we submit 
to a despotic hierarchy, that puts all ecclesiastical 



36 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

power into the hands of corrupt and tyrannical 
bishops and priests, by which men's consciences 
are oppressed, their liberties destroyed, and both 
the Church and the State are made captive to the 
outrageous pretensions of vain and proud men who 
arrogate to themselves the power and infallibility 
that belong to God only. Such an oppressive hier- 
archy Christ did not institute, and the True old 
Church knew nothing of. As to ministerial suc- 
cession, we have the true, regular succession, for 
from the ordinations of the apostles, down through 
all the centuries to our own immediate times, there 
has been no break or interruption of the succession 
in the ranks of the ministry. If the ministry in 
Germany, and Sweden, and Denmark, and Norway, 
and England, was a regular ministry up to the time 
of the Eeformation, their successors through the 
three centuries since must be also regular, for the 
succession passed from one to the other in the same 
regular way, and with the same twofold call. We 
have, therefore, the true, old ministry, and the 
True old Church of the apostles and prophets, 
among whom the line of succession began. 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 37 

7. We are the True Church because we have the 
real old keys. 

Christ gave the keys of the kingdom, or Church, 
not to Peter only, but .to all the apostles; and not 
to one only, but to all of their successors, with 
authority to use them to open or to shut the 
Church to men. By this is meant the power to 
admit into the Church worthy persons, and to ex- 
clude unworthy persons from it. The notion that 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to 
one man, and that man the Pope of Pome, for him 
to open and to shut the kingdom of heaven to 
whom he will, was never held until the year A.D. 
845, when it was foisted upon the Church by a 
wicked forgery, known in Church History as the 
"Isidorean Decretals/' It is directly opposed to 
the Word of God, which tells us that Jesus gave 
the power to bind and to loose, to all the apostles : 
Matth. 18 : 18. It is an outrageous imposition, and 
has been made the pretext for the worst tyranny, 
the most high-handed oppression, and the crudest 
injustice, on the part of the Pope of Eome, that 
the world ever witnessed. " We have the real old 
keys, and use them/' says Luther, to open the 



38 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

kingdom to believing and penitent sinners, and to 
shut against unbelievers and hardened offenders, 
"as Christ instituted and designed them, and as 
the apostles and all Christendom have used them 
unto this day. As, therefore, we have the keys 
and their use, with the old Church, we are the 
selfsame old Church," " We make no new keys," 
nor impose a new yoke, such as neither the Church 
nor the apostles imposed, nor our fathers were able 
to bear : neither do we use these keys, which were 
intended only for spiritual uses, to dethrone kings, 
and burn and slay with fagot and stake, with tor- 
ture and gibbet, as in the days of popish power. 
But we use them as the old Church did, to admit 
worthy men into, or to exclude unworthy men 
from, Christ's Church or spiritual kingdom, as the 
old Church did ; by the command of the Lord. We 
have, therefore, the old, true apostolic Church, be- 
cause like the old, true, and apostolic Church, we 
have the real old keys, and use them as the old, 
true, and apostolic Church used them. 

8. We are the True Church because we have, and 
hold, the true Word of God. 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 39 



God's Word is the only rule of faith and practice 
for men. It is the only infallible guide and teacher. 
Man may err, but God can never err. We are di- 
rected to go " to the law and to the testimony, and 
if we speak not according to this Word, there is 
no life in us." Neither is it man's Bible, but God's 
Bible. The force of a plain passage of God's Word 
is sought to be evaded by the flippant reply, "Yes, 
so it reads in your Bible/' as if we had made the 
Bible. No, it is God's Word, and not man's word, 
and we have it in our hands, just as Christ spoke 
it, and the apostles wrote it, and the old primitive 
Church read it, and all Christendom, from that 
time to this, believed and practiced it. Like them, 
we ground our faith on God's Word, we believe 
nothing that it condemns, and we reject nothing 
that it reveals. We have it pure and true as it 
came from the mouth of God himself, in the very 
words in which He inspired it, and clothed with 
infallible divine authority. " We/' says Luther, 
"teach it diligently among us, without any addi- 
tion of new or human doctrines, even as Christ 
himself commanded and taught it. and as the 
Apostles and the primitive Church always did. 



40 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

We invent nothing new, but continue steadfastly 
to hold to the old Word of God, as the old Church 
had it. We are, therefore, the real old Church, 
and as the one and the same old and true Church, 
we believe and teach the same old and true Word 
of God." 

9. We are the True Church, because we have the 
true cross, and the way of salvation by it. 

We have not the wooden cross, and Christ on a 
crucifix, but the real and true cross, and a living 
Christ who was crucified, but who is risen again, 
and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and 
ever liveth to make intercession for us. We adore 
not so much the cross, as we adore Him who was 
crucified on it, and bore our sins, and cleanseth 
us from all sin by His blood. We do not take 
Christ off the cross and put our own merits, and 
works, and penances, and righteousness instead of 
His. IN either do we displace Christ from his 
office of intercessor for us with the Father, and 
put Mary and the saints in His place. But count- 
ing, with St. Paul, as dung all our own merits, 
and works, and righteousness, we make mention 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 41 

of Christ's righteousness, and His only; and east- 
ing down at the foot of the cross all our vanity, 
and pride, and self-exaltation, all hope of salvation 
by any and all human means and methods, all 
saintly intercession, all purgatorial purification, 
all works of supererogation, all merit secured by 
bodily penances and mortifications, we look up 
to Christ crucified for us, as our wisdom and 
righteousness, our sanctification and redemption, 
our all in all, everything we need for our justifica- 
tion before God, and our inheritance of the bliss 
of heaven. This is the only and the old way of 
salvation for the world. It was the way of Paul 
and of Peter, and of all the apostles, and of the 
primitive church, and of all Christendom in its 
purest and best state. With the old church we 
confess, " that there is no other name given under 
heaven among men whereby we must be saved, but 
the name of Jesus," alone. With the old church we 
declare, " God forbid that we should glory, save in 
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," With the 
old church we testify, " Knowing that a man is 
not justified by the works of the law, but by the 
faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in 



42 THE TRUE CHURCH. 

Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the 
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, 
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be 
justified." So believing, and so trusting, and so 
confessing, we are of the True old Church of 
Christ, in which we have salvation and eternal 
life, by the abundant grace and mercy that flow 
to the humble believer from the cross of Christ. 

10. We are the True Church, because in it we have 
the true happy deathbeds of the saints. 

This is the great final test. In the True Church 
we have peaceful deathbeds. The grace which we 
therein receive takes the sting from death, and the 
terror from the grave. We therein learn how to 
die, as well as how to live. With the True old 
Church we can say, in the language of her sainted 
martyrs, "I have fought a good fight; I have 
finished my course; I have kept the faith; hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of glory, 
which the righteous Judge shall give me at that 
day." With the old True Church we can exclaim, 
with her dying saints, u O death, where is thy 
sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 43 

be to God which giveth us the victory, -through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." In this good old church 
the purest devotion has always been cultivated, 
and has flourished from the first; the holiest, and 
most self-denying, and most eminently useful lives 
have been everywhere exhibited ; and the sweet- 
est, happiest, and most blessed, deathbeds are 
constantly witnessed. If we are not safe in this 
church, we are not safe anywhere. If this is not 
the True Church, there is no true church. If in 
this church the soul cannot find rest and peace, 
there is no rest nor peace for it anywhere on the 
earth. If in this church the soul cannot be fitted 
for heaven, it is in vain to hope for such fitness in 
any other. Particular^, with this pure faith, and 
these blessed sacraments, and this sure way of 
justification, and this ancient order, and this right 
practice, in this True Church, at the head of which 
sits in glorious majesty our divine Lord Jesus 
Christ, I would not entertain the thought, even 
for a single moment, of exchanging my chances of 
salvation for a place in the church at the head of 
which sits the Pope of Eome. 

I have Christ's church. I am sure of it. Christ's 



44 THE TRUE CHURCH. 



church is the True Church. With Christ at the 
head of it, I know I am safe. I would not feel 
safe in a church with a man at the head of it. 
Even though he claim to be infallible, I have no 
proof of it; but many proofs to the contrary. I 
am satisfied, therefore, to remain where I am ; and 
I would not exchange my faith and hope for any 
that the Church of Rome can offer me in their 
stead. With the great and good Luther, at the 
Diet of Worms, I must now and always say, and 
with the same positiveness and feeling of certainty 
with which he said it, — "Here I stand; I cannot 
do otherwise. God help me :" Amen. 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, 



* 



"The just shall live by faith."— Roar. 1 : 17. 

Our text furnishes us with a theme that is emi- 
nently appropriate both to the place and to the 
occasion. This house has been erected as a Chris- 
tian Church, and we are assembled on the occasion 
of its solemn consecration. This has just been 
formally done, in the presence of the congregation, 
by whose pious zeal its walls have been reared. It 
has been dedicated as a Christian Church, for the 
preservation and furtherance of the Gospel of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. It is declared to be distinct- 
ively a Lutheran Church, in which " the doctrines 
of Christ may be preached according to the Con- 
fessions of our Evangelical Lutheran Church, His 

* Preached at the consecration of the Church of the Holy Communion, 
J. A. Seiss, D.D., Pastor, February 17, 1875. 

(45) 



46 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

holy Sacraments rightly administered, and His 
religion handed down to the latest generations." 
Chief among the doctrines of our holy Christianity, 
and prominent before all others in the Confessions 
and history of the Lutheran Church, is the doc- 
trine of Justification by Faith. The doctrine of 
Justification by Faith in the atonement for sin 
effected for us by the obedience unto death of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, distinguishes Christianity from 
all other religions in the world. And the doctrine 
of Justification by Faith alone, was the turning- 
point of the Reformation ; it was the experience 
of its necessity and efficacy in the heart of Martin 
Luther that constituted his best qualification for 
the work of the Reformation ; and as it distin- 
guished the Lutheran Church from the Church of 
Rome, so it has come to be regarded as the dis- 
tinguishing mark of separation between Protes- 
tantism and Romanism. Of all the texts, too, that 
announce the doctrine, that which I have named 
at the head of this discourse did as much, perhaps, 
as any other single passage, to give shape both to 
the experience and to the theology of the great 
Reformer. During the spiritual conflict of his soul 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 47 

at Erfurt, and his terrible sickness at Bologna, and 
bis eventful visit to Rome and his effort there 
to ascend St. Peter's staircase on his knees, these 
words of Paul, like a ray of light from heaven, dis- 
persed from his mind both spiritual doubt and 
Romish superstition. It is eminently suitable, 
therefore, that the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith, which this text announces, should be taken 
as the subject for consideration in the first dis- 
course, following the dedication sermon this morn- 
ing, in a house designed by its founders to be " Ein 
Feste Burg/' for the propagation and defence of 
the doctrines of the Reformation. 

" The just shall live by faith." 

Let us, first, enter briefly into an exegetical ex- 
amination of this passage. The entire verse reads 
—"For therein" — L e., as expressed in the preced- 
ing verse, in "the Gospel of Christ which is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth" — "For therein is the righteousness of 
God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 
The just shall live by faith. " This is quoted from 
Habakkuk 2:4. 



48 JUSTIFICA TION BY FAITH. 

The life, expressed in the words " shall live/' is 
undoubtedly eternal life. It is the opposite of 
eternal death. It is explained in the previous verse 
as "salvation," and in the following verse as the 
opposite of, or deliverance from, " the wrath of 
God." They that "live" in the sense here spoken 
of, are saved from the " wrath of God," i. e., from 
the condemnation which the law of God denounces 
upon the transgressor. It is the same life referred 
to by the apostle in the passage, Rom. 6 : 23, "For 
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is 
eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." And 
again, in Eom. 5:21, "As sin reigned unto death, 
even so might grace reign through righteousness 
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." It is 
also the same life to which Jesus himself refers 
when he says, John 3 : 16, " For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." 

They who thus "live," are here called "the 
just." This word, as it occurs in this passage, is 
used in the sense of "justified," A similar use 
occurs in Job 9:2; where the question is asked, 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 49 

"How should man be just with God?" The 
import is, "flow should man be justified — pro- 
nounced just — judicially acquitted before God?" 

To be made just — pronounced just — justified be- 
fore God— is asserted in the text to be " by faith/' 
It is not on account of any innocence possessed, or 
works wrought, by the person, that he is declared 
to be "just," — not on account of any merit in him, 
bat by " faith " in a merit outside of him. As faith 
and works are always placed in opposition to each 
other by the apostle, when speaking of the way of 
salvation, his intention here, as elsewhere, is to 
teach that a man is "just with God" by faith as 
distinct from works, or by a righteousness other 
than his own, and that is reckoned to him by faith 
as the instrument of its appropriation. 

This righteousness which is appropriated by 
faith, and on account of which the man who be- 
lieves is pronounced "just," and the effect of which 
is that he " lives," i. e. } has eternal life, is in this 
verse distinctly declared to be "the righteousness 
of God." " For therein is the righteousness of God 
revealed from faith to faith, as it is written. The 
just shall live by faith." It is the same righteous- 

4 



50 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

ness which the apostle uniformly mentions as the 
ground of our Justification. Thus in Bom. 3: 20 
— 22. " Therefore by the deeds of the law shall 
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law 
is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteous- 
ness of God without the law is manifested, being 
witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the 
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ, unto all, and upon all them that believe." 
And in Rom. 10 : 3, 4. u For they, being ignorant 
of God's righteousness, and going about to estab- 
lish their own righteousness, have not submitted 
themselves to the righteousness of God. For 
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth." And in Phil. 3 : 9. 
" That. I may win Christ, and be found in him, 
not having mine own righteousness which is of 
the law, but that which is through the faith of 
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." 
The plain import of this passage is therefore 
this: Man is justified before God, and has eternal 
life, not on account of his own righteousness, but 
by faith in the righteousness of God, which is ac- 
quired for us by our Lord Jesus Christ* We are. 



J USTIFICA TION B Y FAITH. 5 1 

just, i. e., justified, by faith, and the effect is, we 
shall live, or have eternal life. The great theme 
announced in this precious passage is, 

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

I invite your attention to the discussion of, 

The Nature, 

The Ground, and 

The Means of Justification. 

In the consideration of The Nature of Justifica- 
tion, it is important that we endeavor to form a 
distinct conception of the subject, apart from its 
connection with an}^ other. Among many other 
benefits, Christianity proposes to do two promi- 
nent things for man. It proposes to produce a 
personal change in his moral nature, and to effect a 
judicial change in his state or relation to the law and 
government of God. The one we call Sanctification, 
and the other we term Justification. Sanctifiea- 
tion is a change of the heart, Justification is a change 
of state. The opposite of Sanctification is unholi- 
ness; the contraiy of Justification is condemnation. 
Sanctification removes the pollution of our moral 



52 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

nature occasioned by indwelling sin, Justification 
takes away the condemnation which God inflicts 
upon the guilty transgressor of His holy law. 
Whilst Sanctification is the work of holiness, begun 
at regeneration, and continuing through life, and is 
not complete until its subject is perfected in heaven, 
Justification is a forensic or judicial act by which 
the Judge acquits from the charge of guilt, and 
removes the sentence of condemnation that rested 
upon the transgressor. The two things are essen- 
tially distinct, and it is of the highest importance 
to the formation of correct sentiments concerning 
them, that we keep them separate in our thinking 
of them. 

Let us examine a few passages in order to ascer- 
tain whether this distinction between Sanctifica- 
tion and Justification is recognized in the Scrip- 
tures, and particularly whether Justification is to 
be taken in this judicial sense. In Prov. 17: 15, we 
read, k 'He that juslifieth the wicked, and he that 
condemneth the just, even they both are an abom- 
ination to the Lord/' If to justify a wicked man, 
meant to make him a righteous and good man, it 
is not conceivable how it could be an abomination 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 53 

to the Lord. It is plain that it means to pro- 
nounce a wicked man free from guilt or blame, to 
clear him from, merited punishment, to declare him 
to be just, righteous, and innocent, notwithstanding 
his being a wicked man, and thus imports a sort of 
judicial proceeding. This passage alone is suffi- 
cient to teach us that Justification is something 
quite different from Sanctification, and that it 
evidently does not mean the making of a man 
morally righteous. The making of a man morally 
righteous must necessarily take place, but that is 
the work of Sanctification ; Justification means 
something else. 

Let us take another passage. In Job 9 : 2, 3, we 
read : "How shall man be just with God? If he 
will contend with him, he cannot answer him one 
of a thousand.'' Here the word "just" is used, 
not in reference to personal character, but to in- 
dicate the judicial relation of man with God. If 
God will "contend,' 1 i. e., enter into a trial with 
man, as a criminal is tried by his judge, as he can- 
not answer him, or account for, one of a thousand 
of his sins, how, therefore, can he be justified, i. e., 
cleared, or acquitted, or saved from condemnation 



54 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

in his sight? The judicial sense of this passage is 
very plain. 

Take another passage. In Psalm 143 : 2, we 
read: "And enter not into judgment with thy 
servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be 
justified." In this passage, the forensic or judicial 
sense of the word " justified, v is very clear* The 
Psalmist prays that God will not enter into judg- 
ment with him, i. e., call him to account, or sit as 
a judge on his case, because, being really guilty, 
and as all men are equally guilty with himself, 
therefore, neither himself, nor any other man 
living, can be, in God's sight, justified, i. e., acquit- 
ted of the charge of sin and saved from the pun- 
ishment which it deserves. To be justified, and to 
be acquitted, are here evidently the same thing. 

Those passages in which justification and con- 
demnation are spoken of as opposites of each other, 
make this interpretation especially manifest. Take 
for example, Eom. 5:18, "As by the offence of one 
judgment came upon all men to condemnation, 
even so by the righteousness of one the free gift 
came upon all men unto justification of life." 
Here, just as condemnation means " the judicial 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 55 

act of declaring one guilty, and dooming him to 
punishment," as Webster defines it, so justification 
means the very opposite of that, and imports the 
judicial act of declaring one not guilty, and saving 
him from punishment. 

Equally clear is Bom. 8 : 33, " Who shall lay any 
thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that 
justifieth — who is he that condemneth ?" Here the 
whole transaction, as indicated by these words, is 
judicial. We have before us the judge, the tri- 
bunal, the accuser, the charge brought, the person 
arraigned, the condemnation sought, the acquittal 
from the charge, the exemption from punishment. 
The whole is judicial. The condemnation of the 
accused by the judge does not make him guilty — 
he was guilty before, and his condemnation judici- 
ally fastens his guilt upon him, and sentences him 
to punishment. So his justification does not make 
him righteous; the righteousness, on the ground 
of which he is justified, must be found before, and 
his justification is his judicial acquittal of the 
charge, brought against him on the ground of a 
perfect righteousness that is found to be adequate 
for his acquittal 



56 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

It seems to me that these passages make the 
nature of Justification plain to the commonest 
capacity. By keeping clear in our minds the dis- 
tinction between sanctification, which makes us 
personally holy, and justification, which is our 
judicial acquittal of the charge of guilt, and the 
removal of the condemnation which God's law 
denounces upon the transgressor, we can have no 
difficulty in comprehending the nature of both. 
To use the forcible words of another, " Sanctifiea- 
tion is the act of God within us, changing our 
moral nature—Justification is the act of God with- 
out us, changing our relative state — blessings in- 
separable^ indeed^ but essentially distinct" 

It may be instructive, as well as interesting, to 
all present to hear what is said concerning the 
nature of Justification, by some of the old and 
learned divines of our Church, as well as the testi- 
mony of our Confessions themselves. The Formula 
of Concord, Art. 3, says, "The word to justify here 
signifies to declare or pronounce just or righteous, 
and absolved from sins, and to account as released 
from the eternal punishment of sins, for the sake 
of the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 57 

to faith by God/' The great Chemnitz says, 
" Paul everywhere describes Justification as a 
judicial process, because the conscience of the sin- 
ner, accused by the divine law before the tribunal 
of God, convicted, and lying under the sentence of 
eternal condemnation, but fleeing to the throne of 
grace, is restored, acquitted, delivered from the 
sentence of condemnation, is received into eternal 
life, on account of the obedience and intercession 
of the Son of God, the Mediator, which is appre- 
hended and applied by faith." To this clear and 
lucid statement of the doctrine, Quenstedt, another 
of our profound divines, furnishes the explicit 
testimony : " Justification is the external, judicial, 
gracious act of the most Holy Trinity, by which it 
accounts a sinful man, whose sins are forgiven on 
account of the merits of Christ, apprehended by 
faith, as just, to the praise of its glorious grace and 
justice, and to the salvation of the justified/' To 
these statements of the doctrine, we must yet add 
that of the learned Baier, who says, ''Justification 
has a forensic sense, and denotes that act by which 
God, the Judge, pronounces righteous the sinner 
guilty of crime, and deserving punishment, but 



58 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

who believes in Jesus." The testimony of the * 
Church is uniform with the testimony of the 
Scriptures. As the Word of God announces the 
doctrine, so it has been understood and confessed 
by all the sound divines and faithful members of 
the Church, from the beginning to the present 
time. 

Bearing in mind the forensic or judicial meaning 
of justification, we must next inquire into the 
nature of the righteousness which constitutes 

THE GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION, 

In order correctly to understand the ground of 
our justification, we remark — 

1. Justification, or, a judicial acquittal, demands a 
perfect righteousness as the ground of it. 

The great moral law controls our relation to 
God and to His moral government of the w r orld. 
It is the standard of moral duty. Obedience of 
the law is righteousness; transgression of the law 
is sin. 1 John 3:4. Righteousness requires a 
perfect fulfilment of every precept of the' law, 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 59 

and the least violation of any of its precepts is 
sin, and brings us under its entire condemnation. 
"He that is guilty of one point is guilty of all," 
and the denunciation is in these solemn words : 
" Cursed is every one that continueth not in all 
things written in the book of the law to do them." 
This is very clear. It is not needed to break 
every precept of the law in order to be a trans- 
gressor of the law. If one precept is broken, the 
law is broken. An offender in one point is an 
offender against the whole law. No righteousness 
is perfect that is not complete in all things, The 
righteousness on account of which we can be 
justified before the court of heaven must be per- 
fect. Nothing less than this is righteousness. In 
a judicial sense, nothing less than this can be 
righteousness. As it was in the old law, so it is 
now, and always will be, in God's court, as in 
human courts, "If there be a controversy between 
men, and they come into judgment, that the 
judges may judge them, then shall they justify 
the righteous and condemn the wicked. " Deut. 
25:1. "We are sinners, simply because we have 
transgressed the law, whether it be only once 



60 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

or a thousand times; so we can be accounted 
righteous only when we may be regarded as 
having perfectly kept the law." The thief or the 
murderer suffers the penalty of imprisonment or 
capital punishment for the violation of but one of 
the immense number of laws on the statute-book. 
He may have kept all the others; the transgres- 
sion of one is enough to condemn him. So says 
human law, and on this point the law of God and 
the law of man accord perfectly, and the enlight- 
ened judgment of all men, in all ages, has pro- 
nounced it right and just. 
We remark — 

2. We have not in our hearts and lives a personal 
righteousness that can constitute the ground of our 
justification. 

The Scriptures, confirmed by every man's expe- 
rience, make this point so clear that argument 
upon it is scarcely necessary. The passages, 
Horn. 3:10, " There is none righteous, no not 
one/' and Eom. 3:23, "For all" have sinned and 
come short of the glory of God/' are complete 
proofs of it. Equally explicit is the passage, Titus 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 61 

3:5, "Not by works of righteousness which we 
have done, but according to his mercy hath he 
saved us." But most conclusive of all are the 
declarations, Rom. 3: 20, "Therefore by the deeds 
of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, 
for by the law is the knowledge of sin," and Gal. 
2:16, "Knowing that a man is not justified by 
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus 
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, 
that we might be justified b} T the faith of Christ, 
and not by the works of the law, for by the works 
of the law shall no flesh be justified." 

Now, the nature of Justification itself, being a 
judicial acquittal of a person arraigued for crime, 
makes it very evident that, if we are sinners and 
have transgressed the law, we can never be justi- 
fied by our works, for our works are the very 
things that condemn us. A prisoner, arraigned 
before the court on a charge of crime, can be 
acquitted only if his innocence is established; but 
if guilty, and strict justice is done, he must in- 
evitably be condemned. Adam, before he fell, 
could have been justified by works, for he was 
then innocent and had broken no law. Unfallen 



62 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

angels can be justified by works, for they have 
never sinned. But sinners, being guilty men, as 
we all are, can never be justified by works, for 
" How can a man be just with God? If he will 
contend with him, he cannot answer one of a 
thousand." If we were holy as Adam before he 
fell, as nnfallen angels are, or as Jesus, who was 
without sin, then we might hope to be justified by 
works; but the fact of guilt "makes justification by 
works impossible. 
We remark — ■ 

3. Christ's righteousness is the only ground of our 
justification. 

The Scriptures uniformly represent that Christ 
became our substitute and surety, took our place, 
and acted in our stead, and by His obedience unto 
death, His doing, and His suffering, He effected 
for us a vicarious atonement ; and that whosoever 
believes on Him has His righteousness accounted 
to him as his own, and stands justified before God, 
for Christ's sake. Christ's obedience is, therefore, 
instead of our obedience, and His righteousness 
instead of our righteousness, in the matter of our 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 63 



justification. The perfect righteousness which Jus- 
tification requires, and which we so lamentably 
lack, we find in our Divine Surety, who obeyed 
the law in our stead, whose righteousness is made 
over or imputed to us, and in His righteousness 
we are accepted and regarded as righteous. The 
law is fulfilled, not by us, but in the person of a 
representative — "The Lord our righteousness." 
Jer. 23 : 6. Faith appropriates that righteousness, 
so that to the believer alone is the vicarious right- 
eousness of Christ imputed. It is, therefore, called 
the righteousness of faith, and the entire doctrine 
is known as the doctrine of Justification by Faith. 

Concerning this doctrine, as thus briefly stated > 
let us now go to the Word of God, and listen to its 
testimony : 

In the third chapter of Romans, St. Paul argues 
this subject at length, in the most able and con- 
clusive manner. "There is none righteous; no > 
not one." "Therefore by the deeds of the law, 
there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.'* 
"But now the righteousness of God without the 
law is manifested, even the righteousness of God 
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and 



64 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

upon all them that believe. For all have sinned, 
and come short of the glory of God. Being justi- 
fied freely by His grace through the redemption 
that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth 
to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to 
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins 
that are past, to declare, I say, at this time, His 
righteousness, that He might be just, and the 
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. There- 
fore we conclude that a man is justified by faith 
without the deeds of the law." Can anything be 
more clearly stated, or more conclusively rea- 
soned? Not any deeds that man doeth, nor any 
righteousness that man worketh, but the right- 
eousness of God, the Divine Redeemer of man, is 
the ground on which his justification or acquittal 
before God taketh place. 

Now, this is not the only instance in which this 
doctrine is taught in the Scriptures. It is the 
general tenor of the apostle's teaching. Let us 
hear a few additional statements. In Rom. 10: 
3, 4, he says, concerning his Jewish brethren, 
"For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, 
and going about to establish their own righteous- 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 65 

ness, have not submitted themselves to the right- 
eousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law 
for righteousness to every one that believeth." 

Hear also Phil. 3 : 9, "And be found in him, not 
having mine own righteousness which is of the 
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ; 
the righteousness which is of God by faith." In 
1 Cor. 1:30, we read: "But of him are ye in 
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wis- 
dom, and righteousness, sanctification, and re- 
demption/' In 2 Cor. 5:21, we read: "For He 
hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, 
that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in Him." Jeremiah had prophetically said con- 
cerning Christ, Jer. 23:6, "And this is the name 
whereby He shall be called, The Lord our right- 
eousness." 

Now, brethren, we can only conceive of two 
classes of justifying righteousness. Only tw T o 
kinds of righteousness, as bearing upon our justifi- 
cation, are ever spoken of in the Scriptures, and 
these are our own righteousness and the right- 
eousness of Christ. These are always placed in 
direct and positive opposition to each other when 

5 



QQ JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

the subject of discussion is justification. See 
how completely and persistently the antithesis is 
carried out. " Is one called the 'righteousness of 
the law/ the other is the 'righteousness of faith/ 
Is one called by St. Paul 'our own righteousness/ 
the other he calls the 'righteousness of God.' Is 
one described as 'by the law/ the other is 'with- 
out the law/ Is one reckoned to 'him that work- 
eth/ the other is to ' him that worketh not/ Is 
the one 'of debt/ the other is 'of grace/ Does 
one give man 'whereof to glory/ because it is 'of 
works/ the other 'excludes boasting/ because it is 
'of faith/ Does Paul 'count all things but loss 
that he may win Christ, and be found in Him V 
He has no hope of succeeding till he has first laid 
aside 'his own righteousness ' as worthless, and 
put on in its stead the 'righteousness which is by 
the faith of Christ/ In his view these two are 
essentially inconsistent in the office of justifica- 
tion, so that if we trust in the one we cannot have 
the other; if we 'go about to establish our own 
righteousness/ it implies that we have not sub- 
mitted to, but rejected, the 'righteousness of God.' " 
What, now, is the process ? The sinner stands 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 67 

before God charged with the transgression of His 
law. He is guilty. He can present no plea of 
"not guilty." He has committed the deed with 
which he is charged ; and not only in one instance, 
but in thousands, for they are more than the hairs 
of his head, and cannot be numbered. As he has 
no innocence to offer, and no righteousness to 
plead, he is under the curse of the law, and awaits 
the sentence of condemnation from the lips of the 
Judge. But lo ! a righteousness is found that will 
save him. Christ his divine substitute and surety 
has by his vicarious obedience " magnified the law, 
and made it honorable" — has so fully obeyed the 
law in his stead, that not one jot or one tittle re- 
mains unfulfilled; and this His righteousness is 
now declared for the remission of sins — declared, 
repeats the apostle, that God "might be just, and 
the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." He, 
therefore, that lays hold with the trembling hand 
of faith upon the Saviour's righteousness, has that 
righteousness reckoned to him, and in it he stands 
justified before God. With David, Psalm 71: 16, 
his faith leads him to say, "I will make mention 
of thy righteousness, even of thine only;" and the 



68 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

righteousness of which he makes mention, and on 
which he rests his salvation, will not disappoint 
his hopes. 

We quote the words of another: " Such is the 
fulness of that meritorious cause of justification 
unto all who believe, that they are accounted 
righteous; in other words, righteousness is ac- 
counted or imputed to them — righteousness as 
perfect as the merits of the Redeemer, because of 
those merits it consists — so that to believers God 
no more imputes sin, than if they had never sin- 
ned. The numerous passages I have quoted, teach 
nothing less than that whenever a sinner believes 
in the Lord Jesus Christ, though his sins be as 
scarlet, and as numerous as the sands on the sea- 
shore, the righteousness of Christ, as his substitute 
and surety, is so perfectly made over to him, that 
he stands in Him, before God, as having nothing 
laid to his charge; his sins remembered no more; 
his justification (not his sanctification, remember,) 
— his justification as perfect as was that of Adam 
before he sinned — no more capable of being in- 
creased than the righteousness of the Beloved in 
whom he is accepted. This is the fulness of the 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. (39 

glory of our redemption. It is finished. It is 
finished. 'He that believeth is justified from all 
things from which he could not be justified by 
the law of Moses.' Therefore does St. Paul tri- 
umphantly exclaim, ' Who shall lay anything to 
the charge of God's elect? It is God that justi- 
fieth; who is he that condemneth V Such is the 
blessed doctrine of Justification by Faith, without 
which, as the standards of the church truly say, 
< The poor conscience can have no certain hope, 
nor conceive the riches of the grace of Christ/ " 

The doctrine as thus announced in God's Word, 
is the doctrine of our Church as laid down in our 
Confessions, and is also the uniform testimony of 
our ablest theologians. Says the Apology of the 
Augsburg Confession: " To be justified here sig- 
nifies, according to forensic usage, to absolve a 
guilty man and pronounce him just, but on account 
of the righteousness of another, viz., of Christ, 
which righteousness of another is communicated 
to us by faith." The Formula of Concord, Art. 3, 
has the following: " Christ's obedience, therefore, 
not only in suffering and dying, but in His being 
voluntarily put under the law in our stead and 



70 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

fulfilling it with such obedience, is imputed to us 
for righteousness, so that for the sake of this 
perfect obedience, which He rendered unto His 
heavenly Fathei for us, in both doing and suffer- 
ing in His life and death, Gad forgives us our sins, 
accounts us as righteous and just, and saves us 
eternally/' The great theologian, Quenstedt, has 
this luminous passage : " The form of imputa- 
tion consists in the gracious decision of God, by 
which the penitent sinner, on account of the most 
perfect obedience of another, L e., of Christ, appre- 
hended by faith, according to Gospel mercy, is 
pronounced righteous before the divine tribunal, 
just as if this obedience had been rendered by man 
himself/' It will be clearly seen how closely these 
statements of the doctrine harmonize with the 
utterances of the Word of God, as presented in 
this discourse. 

The discussion of our subject would be incom- 
plete, if we did not yet consider more at length, 
Faith as the 

MEANS OF JUSTIFICATION. 

In the economy of grace, Faith performs a two- 
fold office. It is, in the soul, the root and spring 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 71 

of all other Christian graces; and, therefore, is the 
principle of our sanctification. All Christian 
virtues do spring out of a true and living faith. 
Good works, as the fruit of a living piety, have 
their root and source away down in true and sav- 
ing faith. " Faith without works is dead, 5 ' says 
the apostle, and a dead faith cannot save us. 
Faith is the hand that lays hold on Christ, Hebo 
6 : 18 ; and it must be a living not a dead hand, for 
a dead hand cannot lay hold. Faith is the eye, 
that looks to Jesus for salvation, Isaiah 45:22; 
John 3 : 14, 15; and it must be a living, sparkling 
eye, for a dead eye cannot look. This office of 
faith, as the spring whene-e issue the streams of 
holy and useful deeds, that adorn the Christian 
character and bless the world, is of very high and 
essential importance, and must have a very promi- 
nent place in the teachings of the Church, and in 
the practical life of every Christian. 

But for the purpose of Justification, faith has 
another, and different office, which is to be kept 
very distinct both in our teaching, and in our ex- 
perience. It is simply the means or instrument of 
our appropriation of Christ, by which we put on 



72 J USTIFICA TION B Y FAITH. 

Christ's righteousness, and lay hold on the promises 
of salvation in him. Faith is not the ground of our 
Justification, for this is the righteousness of Christ, 
nor is there any such merit in the exercise of faith, 
that we are justified as a reward for the good 
work or merit of believing. It is simply the in- 
strument; the hand stretched out, the eye looking, 
by which we accept and appropriate to ourselves, 
the merits of the Saviour. In the language of the 
Confessions of our Church, " It remains the office 
and property of faith alone, that it alone, and 
nothing else, is the medium or instrument, by and 
through which the grace of God, and the merit of 
Christ, in the promises of the Gospel, are appre- 
hended, and received, and accepted, and are applied, 
and appropriated to us, and that love and all other 
virtues or works are excluded from this office, and 
property of such application or appropriation." 
Formula Concord, Art. 3, Just, by Faith. Faith is 
therefore effectual unto our Justification simply as 
an act by which we embrace Christ, receive His 
benefits, appropriate His merits, put on the gar- 
ment of His spotless righteousness, lay hold upon His 
promises, cling to His cross, and put our feet firmly 
upon the rock of our Salvation, which is Christ. 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 73 

It is of the first importance that we keep dis- 
tinctly separate in our minds, this twofold nature 
and office of faith. In reference to our Justifica- 
tion, it is simply the means ; or the instrument of 
our appropriation of Christ, and His benefits, and 
that only. "To some it may seem, however, that 
the difference between these divergent views is 
too slight to be made of any importance. But we 
apprehend, it is the point of divergency where lies 
the unseen origin of those very errors which have 
for their legitimate issue, when carried out, nothing 
less than justification by our own righteousness." 
— Bp. Mcllvaine. 

" In the point of acceptation, " says an old divine, 
"God hath given to this poor virtue of faith a 
name above all names. Faith, indeed, as it is a 
virtue, is poor and mean, and comes short of love. 
Faith is but a bare hand. It lets all things fall 
that it may fill itself with Christ. Nothing is re- 
quired but a bare empty hand, which hath nothing 
to bring with it; though it be ever so weak, yet if 
it have a hand to receive, it is alike precious faith, 
that of the poorest believer and the greatest 
saint." 



74 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

Again. " Faith is simply the hand that takes of 
the righteousness of Christ, and appropriates it 
unto us, while laying our sins on the head of that 
wonderful sacrifice He was for us. It is a hand 
without price, without desert, a sinful, as well as 
an empty hand, meriting to be smitten dead for 
its own defects, and for the sinfulness of him 
whose hand it is, while as God's appointed means, 
it puts on Christ, and clothes the sinner in His right- 
eousness" 

The representation of the instrumental office of 
faith, by terming it the hand that takes, and the 
eye that looks, is not only common in theological 
writers, but is so because authorized by the Word 
of God. There we are directed both to "lay hold 
on the hope that is set before us," Heb. 6 : 18, and 
to " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sins of the world," John 1 : 29, and " Look unto me 
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth," Isaiah 
45 : 22. As this taking and looking is not with the 
bodily hand and eye, it is, of course, with the hand 
and eye of faith. 

I may fittingly sum up the results of the discus- 
sion in the forcible words of an eloquent divine. 



JUSTIFICA TION BY FA ITH 75 

" By faith we are in Christ Jesus. A weak faith 
accomplishes this living union as really, though 
not with so much sensible consolation to the soul, 
as a stronger faith. But, says St. Paul, there is 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 
Now, condemnation is the pi^ecise opposite of jus- 
tification. Where one is not, the other must be. 
To impute sin is to condemn; not to impute sin is 
to justify. If it is unreasonable to speak of God's 
imputing sin only partially, so that a man shall be 
accounted as only partly a sinner and partly not 
a sinner, which is indeed absurd, then it is un- 
reasonable to speak of God's justifying but partly, 
or accounting a man in a judicial sense partly con- 
demned and partly acquitted, which would amount 
to being partly a child of God, and partly a child 
of the devil — partly under the penalty of the law, 
and partly under grace. In precisely the same 
sense and degree, therefore, in which justification 
could be progressive, must condemnation be also. 
But condemnation is not progressive in any sense. 
It is complete as soon as we sin. A thousand 
more sins will increase our penalty, but cannot 
increase the certainty of our condemnation. The 



76 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

amount of penalty depends on the amount of guilt. 
The perfectness or certainty of condemnation de- 
pends only on the fact of guilt. Just as a dozen 
acts of theft will increase the amount of the con- 
vict's penalty ; but in a just administration of law, 
one act of theft will insure condemnation. So also 
in justification. Christ's righteousness is set in 
precise opposition to our sin. Justification depends 
upon our having that righteousness accounted to 
us instead of our sin. Faith is the instrument or 
means that obtains that righteousness. As the 
first act of sin condemns perfectly, so the first act 
of faith justifies perfect^. Subsequent acts of 
faith, and stronger degrees thereof, will increase 
our sense of consolation in Christ, and our con- 
fidence of the love of God. and our strength in 
every walk of Godliness, and will multiply upon 
our souls for present comfort and spiritual pros- 
perity all the recompense arising from such growth 
in grace, just as increase of guilt increases shame 
and penalty; but all this can no more acquire for 
us a more perfect justification, than additional 
guilt would obtain a more entire condemnation. 
Christ our righteousness is our strong city — -our 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 77 

city of refuge. Once inside the gates, the sinner 
is safe from the avenger, whether he enter far 
within or just across the threshold. Christ is the 
ark. It mattered not, in the days of JSToah, 
whether those who fled from the flood to the ark 
were possessed of a strong or a trembling faith — 
whether during the awfulness of the deluge they 
all felt assured of protection, or were some of them 
fearful. Strong or weak in .faith, they had suf- 
ficient faith to induce them to flee for refuge to 
the hope set before them. When the flood came, 
they were found therein. It was enough. All 
from the very instant of their entrance were alike 
perfectly secure under the shadow of the Almighty. 
Continuing in the ark, their safety admitted neither 
of increase nor diminution. So in Christ. He that 
wins Christ, and is found in Him, is complete in 
Him. He may have entered the last hour, or the 
last century. He may have come doubtful or 
assured: with a trembling faith or with an assured 
one. His hand may have reached the refuge with 
a firm or a feeble grasp. He may have escaped 
out of the deepest mire of ungodliness, or from 
having been always not far from the kingdom; 



78 JUSTIFICA TION BY FAITH. 

but it altereth not, he is in the ark. God hath shut 
him in. Who shall lay anything to his charge? 
It is God that justifieth; who is he that con- 
demneth ? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that 
is risen again, who also maketh intercession for 
us." — Bp. Mcllvaine. 

Indulge me yet in three remarks. 

1. We have in this, subject the great line of dis- 
tinction between truth and error. 

The doctrine of Justification by Faith is par- 
ticularly the dividing line between Roman ism and 
Protestantism. The Reformation of the sixteenth 
century turned principally on this point. "Luther/' 
sa}^s Scott, in his " Luther, and the Lutheran 
Reformation/' " was appointed in the counsels of 
Providence, by no means exclusively of the other 
reformers, but in a manner more extraordinary 
and much superior, to teach mankind, after up- 
wards of a thousand years' obscurity, this great 
evangelical tenet, compared with which how little 
appear all other objects of controversy ! He proved 
by numberless arguments from the Scriptures, and 
particularly by the marked opposition between 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 79 

law and faith, law and grace, that in justification 
before God all sorts of human works are excluded, 
moral as well as ceremonial. He restored to the 
Christian world the true forensic or judicial sense 
of the word justification, and rescued that term 
from the erroneous sense in which, for many ages, 
it had been misunderstood, as though it meant 
infused habits of virtue, whence it had been usual 
to confound justification with sanctification. By 
this doctrine, rightly stated with all its adjuncts 
and dependencies, a new light breaks in on the 
mind, and Christianity appears singularly distinct 
not only from Romanism, but also from all other 
religions, Neither the superstitions of the Papist, 
nor the sensibility of the humane, nor the splendid 
alms of the ostentatious, nor the most powerful 
efforts of unassisted nature, avail in the smallest 
degree to the purchase of pardon and peace. The 
glory of this purchase belongs to Christ alone; 
and he who in real humility approves of, acquiesces 
in, and rests on Him, is the true Christian." 

These observations of the historian are discrimi- 
nating and just. 



80 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

2. We have in this subject the source of greatest 
consolation to Christian minds. 

How full of hope and comfort to the heart of 
the humble believer is the doctrine of justification 
by faith in Jesus Christ ! " Being justified by 
faith we have peace with God;" and, of course, 
peace within our own hearts. When we look at 
ourselves, we see naught but weakness, imperfec- 
tions, and sins ; and we justly tremble with ap- 
prehension for the future; and if we had nothing 
but our own righteousness to depend on, we might 
well utterly despair. But when we look away 
from ourselves, and contemplate the pure and per- 
fect righteousness of Christ, our divine surety, 
and consider that His spotless righteousness, being 
His obedience of the law in our stead, is imputed 
to us as our own, and that we may stand in it 
righteous before God, and justified of all our sins, 
the soul is filled with unutterable peace and joy. 
We lie at the foot of the cross, and look up to 
Jesus crucified for us, as all our salvation, and the 
view gives peace unspeakable. The whole doc- 
trine is so extraordinary and wonderful, that the 
Christian is sometimes disposed to think that it is 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. gl 

too good to be true. But no, fellow Christians, it 
is as true as it is good. 

3. We have in this subject the answer to be given to 
anxious souls who inquire the way of salvation. 

To the question, " Sirs, what must I do to be 
saved?" the Apostle Paul gave the answer, "Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved;" and, brethren, we have no other answer 
for that question now. We have the same needs, 
the same Saviour, the plan of salvation is the 
same, and the way by which we can procure its 
benefits is still the same. On account of its won- 
derful simplicity, it is regarded now, as formerly, 
by the "Jew a stumbling-block," and by the 
"Greek foolishness;" but it is still "the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
We must, therefore, now as ever, direct the inquirer 
for the way to heaven to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as his " wisdom and righteousness, sanctification 
and redemption." But, he answers, " I am such a 
great sinner." We reply, " There is no doubt of 
it." " I have deserved to be cast away forever." 
" 'Tis certainly true." " I can do nothing to atone 

6 



82 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

for my numerous and aggravated transgressions." 
" 'Tis plain that you cannot." "What, then, shall 
I do ?" " Do ! simply, believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and trust in the Atonement He has made 
for you. Believe His word and promise when he 
tells you that He became your substitute, obeyed 
the law, and endured its penalty in your stead; 
and that as your substitute His obedience is your 
obedience, His righteousness your righteousness, 
His sufferings instead of your suffering, aod that 
for His sake, God will treat you as having per- 
fectly kept the law; and, therefore you will not 
only be released from the punishment due to 
transgression, but be entitled to the full rewards 
of obedience. Do you believe this? If you truly, 
and with the whole heart, believe it, there is no 
more difficulty in your case. Your fears will give 
place to hope, joy will succeed to sorrow, and your 
soul will be at peace with God, and with itself." 

Indulge me in one remark more. Am I address- 
ing any who are altogether indifferent as regards 
their justification, and are impenitent, unbelieving, 
careless sinners ? Let me affectionately remind 
you that you are sinning against the highest pos- 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 83 

sible exhibition of love and mercy. You are 
rejecting the way of salvation which the Divine 
mind has devised, and are exalting your reason 
above Infinite Wisdom. In resting on jour own 
merits, and rejecting Christ's justifying righteous- 
ness, you are casting from you God's method of 
mercy, and are " hewing out for yourselves broken 
cisterns that can hold no water." Will you blindly 
go down to despair, when so much has been done, 
and all is ready, to raise you to heaven ? 

Cling to the Crucified ! 

His death is life to thee, 

Life for eternity. 

His pains thy pardon seal ; 

His stripes thy bruises heal; 

His cross proclaims thy peace, 

Bids every sorrow cease. 

His blood is all to thee, 
It purges thee from sin, 

It sets thy spirit free, 

It keeps thy conscience clean. 
Cling to the Crucified ! 

Cling to the Crucified ! 
His is a heart of love, 



84 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

Eull as the hearts above ; 
Its depth of sympathy 
Are all awake for thee ; 
His countenance is light, 
Even to the darkest night. 
That love shall never change, 

That light shall ne'er grow dim ; 
Charge thou thy faithless heart 
To find its all in Him. 
Cling to the Crucified ! 

Cling to the Crucified ! 

His righteousness is thine, 

His works thy plea divine ; 

Thy sins on Him were laid ; 

His soul an offering made ; 

Justice is satisfied ; 

The claims of law supplied ; 

God now will pardon give, 
And man be justified ; 

He that believes shall live, 
Since Christ for him has died. 
Cling to the Crucified ! 




gssp^ -rs '"■" '^f^%^,jri5te&se£«K?» 




THE HOLT COMMUNION.* 



"Take, eat ; this is my body."— Matth. 26 : 26. 

"The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the 
blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion 
of the body of Christ? "—1 Cor. 10 : 16. 

We propose, as a Synod, and as a congregation, 
to partake this morning of the Holy Sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper. It is a most blessed sacra- 
ment of the Christian Church. We must neces- 
sarily, as Christians, attach much importance to it. 
Christ, our Lord, did so, and we, as His faithful 
disciples, must very highly prize what he solemn- 
ly instituted. In the Old Testament Church there 
were two Sacraments, and there are two in the 
New Testament Church. Circumcision gave way 
to Baptism, and the Passover to the Lord's Sup- 
per. Circumcision was received once in a lifetime, 

* Preached before the Evangelical Lutheran Miuisterium of Pennsyl- 
vania, at Norristowu, Pa., May 23, 1875. 

(So) 



86 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

but the Passover often • so Baptism is received 
only once, but the Lord's Supper often. Circum- 
cision was administered to children, and the Pass- 
over to adults; so Baptism is administered to chil- 
dren , and the Lord's Supper to adults. Circumcision 
was initiatory and brought the subject into the 
Church, and the Passover was partaken by the 
person when in the Church as a regular member 
thereof; so Baptism brings us into Christ, and 
translates us from the kingdom of nature into the 
kingdom of grace, and the Lord's Supper is a 
Sacrament for those who are already in the 
Church, and full members thereof. Circumcision 
denoted the subject's regeneration, or entrance 
upon a new life of true faith and piety, and the 
Passover was the sustentation of that life and a 
reminder of blessings bestowed by the Paschal 
Lamb; so Baptism is the washing of regeneration 
and effects the vital union with Christ's life, and 
the Lord's Supper is the nourishing of that spirit- 
ual life, and a most blessed remembrancer of the 
benefits bestowed upon us by the sacrifice of 
Christ, our true Paschal Lamb, on the cross. Cir- 
cumcision preceded, and the Passover followed 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 87 

after, and was administered to none who were un- 
circumcised; so Baptism must be received first, 
and the Lord's Supper comes after, and is only 
administered to persons who have been previously 
baptized. The analogy is complete, and very in- 
structive, between the two Old Testament and 
the two New Testament Sacraments, 

The doctrine of the Lord's Supper was very 
early involved in the great and eventful discus- 
sions that the Reformation gave rise to. A Sacra- 
ment so holy, and occupying so prominent a posi- 
tion in the Christian Church, and that had been 
so sadly corrupted by the errors against which 
the entire force of the Reformation was directed, 
would necessarily early engage a large share of 
attention, It did so. Luther, at a very early 
period in the great movement which he inaugur- 
ated, perceived the error which the Church of 
Rome held concerning this Sacrament, both as to 
its doctrine, and as to its practical administration. 
It consists of two earthly elements, bread and 
wine. The one only was administered to the 
laity, the other was withheld, and was partaken 
by the priest alone. This, of course, was contrary 



88 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

to its original institution, by our Lord, who gave 
it in both kinds. Luther therefore restored it to 
its original institution, and both administered it 
himself, and required it to be administered by 
others, in both kinds. He restored the cup to the 
people, and thus gave, not a part of the holy 
Sacrament only, but the whole Sacrament, to all 
who participated. 

But the change in the external administration, 
was not the only benefit which accrued from the 
Eeformation. Its reformatory work descended 
deeper, and corrected a more vital error, and one 
that affected the doctrine and life of the Sacra- 
ment. 

It is well known that the Church of Some held, 
and still holds, the doctrine known as Transub- 
stantiation. By this is meant, that after the ex- 
ternal elements of bread and wine, laid on the 
altar, are consecrated by the priest, and by that 
act of consecration, a total change is effected in 
those elements, so that nothing of their original 
nature and substance remains, save their outward 
semblance only. The word Transubstantiation 
means change of substance, a change of one sub- 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 89 

stance into another substance. The idea is that 
the entire substance of the bread and wine is 
changed, and instead of it, another, and a totally 
different, substance is produced. What was, pre- 
vious to the act of consecration, simply bread and 
wine, are such no longer, but are changed — tran- 
substantiated — into the real flesh and blood, to- 
gether with the soul and divinity of Christ. It 
follows, therefore, that as the communicant mas- 
ticates, swallows, and digests something, and that 
something is not bread and wine, but the actual 
flesh and blood, together with the soul and divinity 
of Christ, these are masticated, swallowed, and 
digested by the communicant. 

This doctrine of Transubstantiation was rejected 
by Luther at a very early period. His faithful 
adherence to the Word of God, as his only Eule 
of Faith, and directory of Christian doctrine, 
would not permit him to receive this as an article 
of faith. The Bible, indeed, speaks of the Body 
and Blood as a part of the Sacrament, and he 
honestly, and in full faith, received its statement. 
But it also speaks of bread and wine, as a part of 
the Sacrament, both after, as well as before, the 



90 THE ROLF COMMUNION. 

consecration ; and he must also receive this state- 
ment. If he believed, therefore, that the Lord's 
Supper consisted of the Body and Blood of Christ, 
he must also believe that it consisted of bread and 
wine. The one is stated as plainly, and with as 
much positive directness as the other. He would 
explain neither away, but accept them both on the 
same divine authority. He could not believe that 
it was bread without the Body, and he could not 
believe that it was the Body without the bread. 
Both were declared, by the same divine lips, to be 
present, and to constitute the Holy Sacrament, 
and he must believe both. The Word of God was 
clear, and decisive, and left him no alternative. 
As Transubstantiation set aside the bread, took it 
away from the Sacrament, changed and abolished 
its nature, and transubstantiated it into the Body, 
thus destroying one integral part of the Sacra- 
ment, and offering only half a Sacrament to the 
people, Luther did not hesitate to reject entirely 
the doctrine of Transubstantiation. 

The same earnest adhesion to the statements of 
the Word of God, would not permit him to reject 
the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 91 

from the Lord's Supper. Some, in his time, swing- 
ing off from the gross doctrine of Transubstantia- 
tion, which made the Sacrament all Body, swung 
over to the opposite extreme, and made the Sacra- 
ment all bread. In their view, it was nothing but 
bread eaten, and wine drank, in a sort of com- 
memorative representation of Christ's death on 
the cross, But Christ, when instituting it, had 
positively said, " This is my body." He took 
bread, blessed it, still calling it bread, but at the 
same time pronounced it His Body, Here was a 
most solemn transaction, done in the most solemn 
manner, uttered with the most solemn words, and 
performed at a most solemn time. He must be 
supposed to choose His words with great care, and 
with direct reference to their plain import, because 
He was instituting an ordinance that was to be 
observed in all coming time, as the chief Sacra- 
ment of His Church. His words, therefore, must 
be well weighed, and must be accepted in their 
true and obvious meaning. 

It was, therefore, plain to Luther's mind, that 
the Lord's Supper consisted of two kinds of ele- 
ments, an earthly and a heavenly, both of which 



92 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

were necessary to constitute the Sacrament. The 
earthly was bread and wine, the heavenly was the 
Body and Blood of Christ. The earthly was not 
a Sacrament without the heavenly, neither was 
the heavenly a Sacrament without the earthly. 
The bread and wine alone, did not constitute a 
Sacrament, neither did the Body and Blood of 
Christ alone, constitute a Sacrament. Therefore, 
neither must be changed. The bread must not be 
changed into the Body, neither must the Body be 
symbolized merely by the bread. Both must be 
there in their true and real nature, or there is no 
Sacrament. 

Conclusive as are the words of our Lord at the 
institution of the Holy Sacrament, they receive 
confirmation from the clear and positive state- 
ments of the Apostle Paul. 

In 1 Cor. 10 : 16, St. Paul asks, " The cup of 
blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we 
break, is it not the communion of the body of 
Christ." This passage is written in the form of 
questions, and in such a way that there can be 
only one, and that an affirmative, answer given to 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 93 

them. To the question, " Is not the cup of bless- 
ing the communion of the blood of Christ?" the 
answer necessarily must be, yes. And to the 
question, " Is not the bread which we break, the 
communion of the body of Christ ?" the only 
answer that can be given, and that he intended 
should be given, is, yes. The one is the commu- 
nion of the Blood, and the other is the commu- 
nion of the Body, of Christ. 

Now, what is meant by the word "Communion," 
as it twice occurs in this verse ? We can only 
rightly understand the meaning of the verse, and 
the nature of the Lord's Supper, by carefully con- 
sidering the meaning of this word. As the cup, 
or the wine that it contain s, is the " Communion " 
of the Blood, and the bread is the " Communion" 
of the Body, of Christ, the question is of essential 
importance, What is that "Communion?" The 
Greek word, here translated " communion," is the 
word " xoivutvta" and the dictionaries define its 
meaning by the words "community, sharing, par- 
ticipation, partaking, connection, communication, 
distribution, alliance," and others of the like gen- 
eral import. The idea plainly is, as stated by the 



94 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

learned Bengel in his Gnomon on this passage. 
" He who drinks of this cup, is a partaker of the 
blood of Christ/' and he who eats of this bread 
is a partaker of the body of Christ. It is the 
channel, or vehicle, or medium of conveyance, by 
which as the earthly or visible element, the heav- 
enly or invisible element is imparted to the com- 
municant, and received by him. It means, he who 
partakes of the cup, partakes of the Blood; he 
who partakes of the bread, partakes of the Body. 
This is the meaning of the word Koinonia, here 
translated "Communion." The verse might be 
translated, " When we use the cup of blessing 
which we bless, do we not also partake of the 
Blood of Christ? When we use the bread which 
we break, do we not also partake of the Body of 
Christ?" This idea of participation, partaking, 
communication, must be well borne in mind, if we 
would rightty comprehend the deep and precious 
meaning of the passage. 

But this is not alh In 1 Cor, 11 : 27, the Apostle 
Paul says, '" Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this 
bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, 
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 95 

Of course, disrespect to the bread and the wine, 
could not involve disrespect to the Body and Blood 
of the Lord, unless in some way, the Body and 
Blood of the Lord were connected with the bread 
and the wine. As it is the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper about which he speaks, this connec- 
tion of the bread and wine with the Body and 
Blood, is the same as that which, in the previous 
chapter, he had called " the Communion of the 
Body and Blood of Christ." The disorderly Cor- 
inthians were led to treat the Lord's Supper with 
disrespect, and to eat and drink the bread and 
wine in gluttonous and drunken excess, because 
they failed to consider that there was more than 
bread and wine in the Sacrament, and that another 
and a divine element was also present, viz., the 
Body and Blood of Christ, The Apostle, there- 
fore, with much earnestness, pointed out their 
guilt, which consisted not simply in treating bread 
and wine with disrespect, but in treating with 
contempt the higher, even the divine element of 
which it consisted. They became guilty of shame- 
ful abuse of the Bod}^ and Blood of the Lord. The 
Body and Blood of the Lord must, therefore, be 



96 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

there. These must then necessarily bo a part of 
the Sacrament, and give it its value, and consti- 
tute its divine character. Disrespect to bread and 
wine couid not be the crime here charged upon 
the Corinthians, if the Body and Blood of Christ 
were not present, and did not form a part of the 
Sacrament. How could they be guilty of the 
Body and Blood of the Lord, by any unworthy 
eating and drinking of bread and wine simply ? 
Whilst this verse then, clearly teaches the presence 
of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Com- 
munion, it also teaches that there is no Transub- 
stantiation, for the bread is still called bread, and 
what the Apostle calls it, that it undoubtedly is. 
The two elements, constituting one Sacrament, are 
both distinctly named. Both are there. The one 
is not destroyed by being changed into the other. 
The Body of Christ is a part of the Lord's Supper, 
but the bread is also. There is no Transubstan- 
tiation. 

But this is still not all. In 1 Cor. 11 : 29, the 
Apostle says. " For he that eateth and drinketh 
unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to 
himself, not discerning the Lord's Body." How 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 97 



could any man be justly censured for not discern- 
ing the Lord's Body, if there was no Body of the 
Lord there to be discerned ? The Greek word 
translated "discerning" means to discriminate, to 
distinguish. They did not distinguish between 
the common eating and drinking of mere bread 
and wine, and the solemn partaking of a holy 
Sacrament of which the Body of the Lord con- 
stituted a part. Their sin consisted in failing to 
discern or distinguish the Lord's Body. But if 
there was no Body of the Lord there, there was 
no Body to be discerned, and they could not be 
guilty of not discerning what did not exist. 
The whole verse would be meaningless, and the 
charge of the apostle of sin and guilt against the 
Corinthians, would have been absurd, if the Sacra- 
ment consisted only of bread and wine, and the 
Body and Blood of Christ formed no part of it. 
Jt was the fact that the Body and Blood of Christ 
were present, and constituted the chief thing in 
the Sacrament, that rendered them guilty who 
partook unworthily, because neglecting to discern 
this hio-her element in it. The excesses in which 
they indulged, proceeded from their not discern- 



98 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

ing the Lord's Body in it, and in this consisted 
their guilt, and on account of it they ate and 
drank damnation to themselves. Not only bread, 
therefore, but the Lord's Body also, are present in 
the Lord's Supper. All this is very plain to those 
who candidly and carefully read these passages. 

From these plain passages of our Lord, and His 
apostle, Luther could do no otherwise than hold, 
that, whilst the earthly or visible element in the 
Lord's Supper was bread and wine, which under- 
went no change during any period either before 
or after the consecration thereof, there was at the 
same time, another element in the Holy Sacra- 
ment, which was no other than the glorified Body 
and Blood of the Lord. The Word of God was 
too direct and positive in its statements, for him 
to adopt any other view, without an utter rejec- 
tion of that Word. Such was his reverence for 
God's Word, that he followed wherever it led, and 
a "Thus saith the Lord/' was with him, the end 
of all controversy. 

This doctrine, so Biblical and clear, thus held 
and promulgated by the great Eeformer, was at 
first assented to and held by all who were assoei- 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 99 

ated with him in the work of Reformation. But 
after the lapse of a few years, other views began 
to be entertained, and preached by Carlstadt, 
Zwinglius, (Ecolampadius, and others, and thus 
the unhappy differences arose concerning the doc- 
trine of the Lord's Supper, that have, until this 
daj T , afflicted the Protestant Church. These dif- 
ferences are much to be regretted. Whilst the 
Church of Rome is united on the doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation, the Protestant Church fritters 
away its strength, by a large part of it very un- 
wisely taking an extreme position in opposition 
to that of Rome, and which must be maintained, not 
by Scriptural declarations, but by arguments drawn 
professedly from reason and philosophy. It is 
much to be regretted that Luther's moderate 
views, and conservative position, sustained as they 
are by the plain and direct declarations of God's 
Word, have not been universally adhered to by 
Protestants. Many of the views that have been 
uttered and printed on this doctrine, are very 
crude and undigested, and indicate much more 
zeal without knowledge than sound and thorough 
acquaintance with Biblical theology. The doc- 



100 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 



trine of Luther has been assailed, not with pas- 
sages from God's Word, for these are confessedly 
plainly and positively in his favor, but with reasons 
and objections drawn from the inability of the 
human mind to comprehend the mystery, or to 
understand how the Word of God can be true in 
its declarations on this subject. It is, too largely, 
the old spirit of rationalism that has for many 
centuries troubled the Church, not o^ily on this, 
but on other fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. 
It may serve a useful purpose, if we consider some 
of these objections and difficulties. The doctrine 
is strongly intrenched in the Word of God, and 
mere philosophy cannot overthrow God's Word. 
Even if the specious objections that human reason 
may allege against it, could not be fully explained, 
still God's Word must stand firm over against any 
difficulties which man's limited capacity to com- 
prehend the infinite, may interpose. A doctrine 
of God's Word is not necessarily false, because it 
is beyond the reach of our feeble reason. Man's 
ignorance cannot overthrow God's infinite intelli- 
gence. If God says so, it is true, whether we can 
explain it or not. 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 1Q1 



1. It has been charged that the doctrine of Luther, 
and of the Lutheran Church, differs little^ if in any- 
thing, from Transubsta ntiat ion . 

But this charge is so obviously untrue, that little 
effort would seem to be necessary to refute it. 
Transubstantiation, or a change of the substance 
of the bread and wine into the actual flesh and 
blood of Christ, so that no bread and wine remain, 
but what seem to be bread and wine, are really 
something else — this notion was rejected by none 
more positively than it was by Luther, and by no 
Church more peremptorily than by the Lutheran 
Church. The Form of Concord uses the following 
strong language: "We, therefore, reject and con- 
demn with our hearts and lips, as false, and dan- 
gerous, and deceptive, the Transubstantiation of 
the papists, that the bread and wine are changed 
into the substance of the Body and Blood of 
Christ/' The Lutheran Church goes out with this 
plain and distinct principle that the bread and 
wine undergo no change of substance whatever. 
At no time or stage in the consecration, or in the 
participation of the Sacrament is there any change 
in the substance of the bread and the wine. They 



102 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 



are bread and wine when placed on the table, they 
are bread and wine when put to the lips of the 
communicant; they feel, and taste, and smell, and 
look like bread and wine, and they are so; no 
change of substance, whatever, of any kind or 
degree, is effected by their presence on the Com- 
munion table. Let this be distinctly borne in 
mind. If there is no change in the substance of 
the bread and the wine, then, of course, there can 
be no Transubstantiation, for this necessarily sup- 
poses such a change. Indeed, it is in such a change 
that Transubstantiation consists. If no change 
takes place in the substance of the bread and the 
wine, there can be no gross and carnal eating and 
drinking of Christ's Body and Blood at all. If we 
grant that there is no change in the substance of 
the bread and the wine, all the gross and repulsive 
ideas, which Transubstantiation awakens, are at 
once wholly excluded. The presence of Christ 
must then be of a Sacramental sort, glorified, 
spiritual, heavenly, not earthy and gross. 

It would seem that a small amount only of can- 
did reflection, is needed to prevent the making of 
such a charge as this. Christ's body is His glori- 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 1Q3 

lied, resurrection body. The saints, when they 
rise from the dead will be " like unto Christ's own 
glorious body." Our resurrection bodies are 
spoken of as being '-spiritual bodies/' So nearly 
will our glorified bodies resemble pure spirit, that 
" spiritual bodies," is the proper term to designate 
their nature. In this respect they will resemble 
Christ's body. His body is, therefore, a ''spiritual 
body." There can, then, of necessity, be no gross, 
carnal eating, as a man eats the flesh, and drinks 
the blood of an animal slain. It is an eating and 
drinking of a different kind. It is after a heav- 
enly, divine, Sacramental sort. It is a bodily par- 
taking, but the body is Christ's glorified, spiritual 
body, the nature of whose existence, and the mode 
of whose communication to the partaker of the 
Sacrament are necessarily incomprehensible to us. 
It is a real presence, for if not real, it is not a 
presence of Christ's Body and Blood at all. But 
it is the real presence of the glorified human na- 
ture of Christ, that is so nearly pure spirit as to 
be properly called a " spiritual body." 

That this is the doctrine of the Lutheran Church 
is evident from the following quotation from the 



104 the sour COMMUNION. 

" Formula of Concord," one of our Symbolical 
Books. After quoting an extended extract from 
Luther's works, the Formula proceeds to say : 
" From these words of Dr. Luther, it is manifest 
in what sense the word spiritual is used in our 
churches, concerning this matter. For, with the 
Sacramentarians, this word spiritual signifies noth- 
ing more than that spiritual communion, when by 
faith the truly believing are incorporated in spirit 
in. Christ, the Lord, and become true spiritual 
members of His body. But when this word spiritual 
is used by Dr. Luther and by ourselves in relation 
to this matter, we understand by it the spiritual, 
supernatural, heavenly mode, according to which 
Christ, being present in the Holy Supper, works 
not only consolation and life in the believing, but 
also judgment in the unbelieving. And by this 
word spiritual we reject those Capernaitic thoughts 
concerning the gross, carnal presence, with which 
our churches are charged by the Sacramentarians, 
notwithstanding our public and frequent protesta- 
tions. In this sense we wish the word spiritual to 
be understood, when we assert that, in the Holy 
Supper, the body and blood of Christ are spiritually 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 1Q5 



received, eaten, and drank; for although this par- 
ticipation takes place orally, yet the mode is spirit- 
ual." 

When these two things are duly taken into con- 
sideration, viz., that there is no change supposed 
to be effected in the substance of the bread and 
the wine, but that they remain, during the whole 
communion, simply bread and wine, and that, fur- 
ther, the presence of Christ is the presence of his 
glorified, spiritual body, that is inseparably united 
to the divine nature in one person,— when, we say, 
these two points are taken into consideration, who 
can reasonably object to the doctrine as thus 
held, and set forth, or charge upon it the gross 
error of Transubstantiation ? 

Bear with me, whilst, even at the risk of some 
repetition, I dwell a little longer on this objection 
to the doctrine of the Lutheran Church on the 
Lord's Supper. 

Let it, then, be borne in mind,, very distinctly, 
by friends and opponents of the doctrine of the 
Lutheran Church, that we hold : 

First, the Lord's Supper is composed of two vis- 
ible or earthly elements, viz,, bread and wine. 



106 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

both of which must be used in the administration 
of the Sacrament. 

Secondly, neither the bread nor the wine under- 
go any change at any time, before or during the 
administration of the Sacrament. They are both 
so termed in the passages describing it, and not 
the remotest intimation is given of any change. 
The bread remains bread, and the wine remains 
wine. Bread and wine are placed on the altar, 
and after consecration they are what they were 
before, substantially bread and wine. The bread 
is not changed into the Body, nor the wine into 
the Blood. They remain bread and wine, both in 
their essence and in their accidents. They undergo 
no change in their nature, whatever. The com- 
municant eats and drinks bread and wine; they 
look, and feel, and smell, and taste like bread and 
wine, and they are bread and wine. They were 
bread and wine when the proper officer laid them 
on the altar; they are still bread and wine when 
the prayer of consecration is said over them ; they 
are bread and wine when the communicant re- 
ceives them into his lips ; and from first to last in 
the Lord's Supper they are bread and wine. 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 1Q7 



But thirdly. The word of God informs us that 
there is another element present and partaken of, 
a heavenly and invisible element, that is also re- 
ceived with the reception of the visible or earthly 
element, and this invisible or heavenly element is 
called the Body and Blood of Christ. This is very 
distinctly stated. " The cup of blessing which we 
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of 
Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the 
communion of the body of Christ?" There are 
two factors, or two kinds of elements, therefore, 
in the composition of the Lord's Supper. The one 
is visible, tangible, external, terrestrial, viz., the 
bread and wine. The other is invisible, intangible, 
internal, celestial, viz., the Body and Blood of 
Christ. The one is gross, material, and that can 
be touched and handled, and that is cognizant by 
our bodily senses, viz., the bread and wine. The 
other is refined, spiritual, that cannot be touched 
or handled, and that is not perceived by our 
bodily organs or senses, viz.. the Body and Blood 
of Christ. When I take the earthly, God also 
with it, gives me the heaven 1 v. 

These two kinds of elements are always present, 



108 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

and make the one Sacrament. They, however, 
remain distinct, as to their different natures, and 
are never changed the one into the other. The 
bread is never changed into the Body, nor the Body 
changed into the bread. How they are related to 
each other, is, of course, mysterious to us, but the 
mysteriousness of it does not destroy the fact, nor 
make it any the less certain. The same mystery 
exists in all the other means of grace, as well as in 
other undisputed facts of Christianity. See how 
this principle runs through them all. 

The Word of God is v composed, as we have it, of 
two parts, the material and the spiritual. The 
material is the Book, visible, earthly, external, 
which we can see with the eye, and touch with the 
hand. But the spiritual, is the truth and grace 
which it conveys, invisible, heavenly, internal, 
which we can neither see with the eye nor touch 
with the hand. The material is the vehicle of the 
spiritual, for through it the spiritual is conveyed; 
but the material is never changed into the spiritual, 
nor the spiritual into the material. 

The Sacrament of Baptism has two kinds of 
elements, an earthly and a heavenly. The one is 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 109 

water, and the other is the Holy Ghost, for Chris- 
tian Baptism is a Baptism both of water and of 
the Hoh T Ghost. The water is visible, earthly, 
external, tangible, as we can see it, and feel it, and 
handle it. But the Holy Ghost is invisible, heav- 
enly, internal, intangible, and that we cannot see, 
and feel, and handle with our bodily organs and 
senses, as we do the water. So here, too, there is 
no change of the one element into the other ele- 
ment. The water is not changed into the Holy 
Ghost, nor the Hohy Ghost into water, but through 
the administration of the water in Baptism, the 
Holy Ghost is given. Yet, although there are two 
elements in Baptism, and there is no Transub- 
stantiation, or passing of one substance into the 
other, but both water and the Holy Ghost retain 
their distinct natures, there are however not two 
baptisms, but only one Holy Sacrament of Chris- 
tian Baptism. As in Baptism, so in the Lord's 
Supper. The two kinds of elements, the earthly 
and the heavenly, although not changed, the one 
into the other, but retaining their distinct natures, 
yet constitute but one ' Holy Sacrament of the 
Lord's Sapper. 



HO THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

We may here also cite, with such limitations as 
are necessary to guard against wrong sentiments, 
several illustrations of a somewhat different kind. 
Christ, in His Person, as composed of two distinct 
natures, affords such illustration. Not that the 
union of the two natures, and the union of the 
two elements, are the same, for the Lutheran 
Church does not hold that the union of the Body 
and the bread, is like that of the divine and human 
natures in Christ, which are "inseparably joined 
together in unity of person, being not two Christs, 
but one Christ." But guarding carefully against 
pushing the comparison too far, we note that when 
on earth, Christ's divinity manifested itself, and 
acted through His humanity, as the visible vehicle 
or medium of communication with men, so in the 
Lord's Supper, there is one Holy Sacrament, com- 
posed of two different elements, the one earthly, 
the other heavenly, and in the mode of its opera- 
tion the heavenly communicates itself by and 
through the earthly. But as in His own myste- 
rious person, there is no fusing of the natures, no 
changing of the one into the other, no transmuting 
of the humanity into the divinity, and yet of the 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. HI 



two natures, there is constituted one undivided 
Christ; so in the Holy Communion, whilst there 
is no changing of the earthly into the heavenly, 
no Transubstantiation of the bread into the Body, 
yet of the two kinds of elements, there is consti- 
tuted one Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 

So also, not precisely like it, for we do not hold 
that the Body dwells locally in the bread, as the 
soul lives in the human body, or is physically con- 
nected with it, but still near enough for illustration, 
as to the mode of operation, we remark, that every 
man is composed of two component parts, or dis- 
tinct natures, the body and the soul. The body is 
not changed into the soul, nor is the soul changed 
into the body. The one is visible, the other 
is invisible. The one is material, the other is 
spiritual. The invisible soul, or spiritual nature, 
manifests itself through the visible body, or material 
nature, as it is the soul that speaks through the 
tongue, that acts by the hands and feet, and that 
hears and sees through the ears and eyes. Where 
the one is, there is also the other, for in life they 
are never separated. 

When, therefore, we say that the bread and wine 



112 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

are the visible, earthly, external, and material 
parts of the Sacrament of the Lord's Sapper, 
whereas the Body and. Blood of Christ, are the in- 
visible, heavenly, internal, supernatural parts of 
the same Sacrament, that the earthly is the 
medium through which the heavenly is conveyed, 
that they are always present, so that when we have 
the one, w T e have also the other, and that the in- 
visible arid heavenly element is the higher and 
nobler element,— when we say this, we are only 
saying what we see everywhere taught in the 
Gospel, what is in plain accordance with the anal- 
ogy that exists in all the ordinances and means 
of grace, and that we see illustrated in our own 
complex natures, and in many other things exist- 
ing around us. When, consequently, our Church 
Catechism, the smaller Catechism of Luther says, 
that " the Lord's Supper is the true Body and 
Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread 
and wine, given unto Christians to eat and to 
drink, as it was instituted by Christ himself/' it 
only says, in clear and beautiful words, what is 
most plainly taught in the numerous passages of 
the New Testament, referring to the Lord's Supper. 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. H3 

2. Another common objection to the doctrine of 
Luther, and a favorite mode of rendering it absurd 
to the minds of unthinking persons, is to ask : How 
could the Body and Blood of Christ be "partaken of in 
the Lord's Supper ■, by the disciples, when He .was 
sitting present with them at the table ? When He 
said, "Take, eat. this is my Body/' did they really 
eat His Body that was then sitting at the table 
with them? 

Now, if we believed in the Bomish tenet of 
Transubstantiation, and therefore, that there was 
really no bread nor wine on the table, after Christ 
had consecrated them, but the bread and wine that 
had been there, were actually changed into the 
substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, so that 
what the disciples masticated and swallowed, and 
what they saw, and felt, and handled, and tasted, 
was not bread and wine, but the real substance of 
the Body and Blood of Christ, then such a question 
as this would probably give us some trouble to 
answer. The disciples masticated something with 
their teeth, what they masticated they swallowed, 
and what they swallowed the stomach digested. 
But if it was not bread and wine, which Transub- 

8 



114 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

stantiation denies that it was, it must have been 
the substance into which Transubstantiation affirms 
they were changed. As that, according to the 
tenet of Transubstantiation, was the substance of 
the Body and Blood of Christ, therefore, the dis- 
ciples masticated, swallowed, and digested the 
substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, whilst 
he was sitting at the table with them. But as the 
Lutheran Church does not believe in the gross, 
Capernaitish eating and drinking which Transub- 
stantiation proposes, such a question as this, urged 
as an objection to our doctrine, does not at all 
affect us. 

On the subject of the various modes of Christ's 
presence which this question involves, Luther 
himself has some very admirable remarks in his 
Treatise on the Sacraments. They show how 
profound were his sentiments, and how farseeing 
his views. He was, indeed, the most extraordi- 
nary uninspired man that ever lived. Let us hear 
his words ; 

"The body of Christ/' says he ; " has three dif- 
ferent ways, or a triple mode, of being in any 
place. 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. H5 

" First, the comprehensible and corporeal mode, as 
when he went about corporeally on earth, where 
he occupied, and took up space according to His 
magnitude. This mode, He is still able to use, 
when He pleases, as He did after His resurrec- 
tion, and as He will at the last day/' But this is 
not the mode of His presence at the Lord's Supper. 

"Secondly, the incomprehensible, spiritual mode, in 
which He is not circumscribed in space, but pene- 
trates through all creatures, where He pleases, as 
my vision (to use this rude comparison), passes 
through air, light, and water, and yet neither 
takes up, nor makes room; as sound passes through 
air, or water, or planks, or walls, and yet does not 
take up. nor make, room ; again, as light and heat 
pass through air, water, glass, crystals, and the 
like, and yet neither make nor require room, and 
many similar examples could be named. This 
method He employed when He arose from the 
sealed sepulchre, and when He passed through 
the closed doors. 

" Thirdly, the divine and heavenly mode, in which 
He is one person with God, and according to 
which, all creatures must, undoubtedly, be far 



11(3 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

more easily penetrated, and be nearer to Him, 
than they are according to the second mode. For, 
if according to the second mode, He can be in and 
with creatures, in such a way, that they neither 
feel, nor touch, nor measure, nor comprehend Him, 
how much more wonderfully is He in all creatures 
according to this exalted third mode, so that they 
neither measure nor comprehend Him, but much 
rather that He has them present before Him, 
measures and comprehends them ! For this mode 
of the presence of Christ, derived from the per- 
sonal union with God, you must place far, very 
far beyond creatures, as far as God is above them; 
again as deep and as near in all creatures as God 
is in them, for he is an inseparable person with 
God, 'where God is there He must also be, or our 
faith is false. But who can tell, or imagine the 
manner in which this takes place? We well know 
that it is so, namely, that He is in God, that He 
is apart from all creatures, and that He is one 
person with God, but how it comes to pass, we 
know not. It is above nature and reason, yea 
above all the angels in heaven; it is known and 
obvious to God alone. Since, then, it is unknown 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. H7 

to us 5 and is nevertheless true, we should not deny 
His word unless we are able to prove with cer- 
tainty, that the Body of Christ can by no means 
be where God is, and that this mode of presence 
is false. It is incumbent upon the objectors to 
our doctrine, to prove this, but they will not 
attempt it/' 

These wonderful words of the great Luther, 
afford a complete answer to the question which is 
asked with so much confidence, as an unanswer- 
able objection to the true doctrine of Christ's 
presence in the Holy Communion. Christ had 
more than the one mode of presence as He sat in 
the view of His disciples. He was visible there, 
was he not at the same time invisible elsewhere ? 
If His divine and human natures were inseparable, 
and constituted one person, as the Scriptures 
clearly teach, and all true evangelical Christians 
believe, was He not in His human nature, wher- 
ever He was in His divine nature ? Whilst, 
therefore, He sat visibly in the upper room in 
Jerusalem, was he not at the same time present 
in Galilee, in the house of Mary and Martha in 
Bethany, in the place called Calvary where He 



118 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

was to be offered up as a sacrifice for the sins of 
the world, and indeed in all other places? Who 
can circumscribe the movements or define the 
presence of such a Being as the Son of God, and 
Son of Mary, in His wonderful complex nature ? 
What was there to hinder him communicating 
Himself after a Sacramental, heaventy, incompre- 
hensible sort, to His disciples as He sat with them 
at the table and as they received from His hands 
the earthly elements of that mysterious Sacra- 
ment which was to be observed in all future time, 
to the end of the world, as the "Communion of 
His Body, and the Communion of His Blood ? " 
It must be plain to every true Christian believ- 
ing reader of the Holy Scriptures, that our ideas 
of Christ's presence, and movements, and pow- 
ers, must be different from those which w T e form 
of any other being of whom we have any knowl- 
edge. Here is the mistake that men make, and 
the source of a large amount of perplexity and 
error concerning the things of Christ. They 
think of Christ, as a being like themselves and 
of His presence and acts as those of men consti- 
tuted like themselves, and with such narrow and 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. H9 

low views, they can never rise to the height and 
breadth of the wonderful things that are taught 
concerning Him in the Scriptures. Their meas- 
urement signally fails them, when they would 
measure such a being as Christ, with the meas- 
uring rod that they use to measure their own 
insignificant altitude. 

3. It is further alleged as an objection to this 
doctrine, that it is incomprehensible. 

We admit it. We do not know how Christ 
communicates himself to the partaker of the Holy 
Communion. We know that it is not visible, 
tangible, carnal, sensual. It is invisible, intangible, 
supernatural, celestial, after the manner of His 
glorified Body. This is all we know. But what 
then ? Does its mystcriousness militate against its 
reality? Is it not real and true because I do not 
understand it? I do not sg regard it. For the 
matter of that, it does not seem more mysterious 
to me than any other of the means of grace, or 
facts of the Gospel. How God's grace is com- 
municated to me through the letters, and words, 
and ink, and paper, that constitute the written 



120 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

Word of God, is a mystery to me. How the Holy 
Ghost, through the medium of water in Baptism, 
conveys to the soul of the person baptized, His 
divine blessing and grace, is a mystery to me. 
How Christ's divinity is united to his humanity, 
so that through the flesh and blood of His mortal 
body, that suffered and died on the cross, God 
spake, and wrought miracles, and moved among 
men, is a mystery to me. How the shedding of 
Christ's blood on the cross effected an atonement 
for my sin, and washes it away, and saves my 
soul, is a mystery to me. How Christ is at all 
times present wherever two or three are gathered 
together in His name, and present, too, in His 
twofold, divine and human nature, for as such 
only is He the Mediator between God and man, 
and therefore, present with his people, is a mystery 
tome. How therefore " the cup of blessing which we 
bless" is "the communion of the Blood of Christ," 
and " the bread which we break is the communion 
of the Body of Christ," is, of course, a mystery 
to me. But cannot I take His word for it ? May 
I not believe what He says? When Christ says, 
" This is my Body," shall I not believe His words ? 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 121 

When the Holy Apostle says, in words so plain 
that I cannot misunderstand them, that the cup 
is the communion of His Blood, and the bread is 
the communion of His Body, shall I not believe 
that he speaks the truth ? Christ knows, and the 
apostle knows, if I do not know. Shall I, who 
am so much lower in the scale of intelligence, re- 
fuse to let Christ or His apostle instruct me? 
Shall I sit in judgment on Christ's veracity? 
Shall I deny the apostle's truthfulness? I do not 
refuse to believe other mysteries, why should I 
refuse to believe this ? The other mysteries of 
my holy faith are not, in any degree, less mysteri- 
ous to me, or more easy for me to understand, than 
this, and yet I believe them without any hesita- 
tion. I admit them to be facts and realities on 
the testimony of God's Word, even though the 
mode of them is a mystery to me. Why should I 
feel, and believe, and act, differently concerning 
the mystery of Christ's presence in the Holy Com- 
munion ? Cannot Christ give me His Body and 
Blood, as He says He does? He says it is so ; and 
why should I doubt His words? He says, "This 
is my Body," and shall I deny it in His face ? No. 



122 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

I believe what He says. He says so; ibis is 
enough for me. Does He say, "This is my- Body 
. — this is my Blood ?" He does. Does an inspired 
apostle say, "The cup of blessing which we bless 
Is the communion of Christ's Blood, and the bread 
which we break is the communion of Christ's 
Body?" He does. This is enough. I believe it. 
God says so. It is enough. 

My feelings are not shocked either by the lan- 
guage employed, or by the sentiment which the 
language expresses, as some have asserted. It is 
not shocking to me to believe that Christ gives 
himself, after a sacramental and heavenly sort, to 
the communicant — His glorified self to me. I am 
not shocked by the atonement which is made for 
my sins by the shedding of Christ's Blood on the 
cross, but the doctrine is most welcome, and its 
influence is most cheering to my heart. I am not 
shocked that water in Baptism is the medium of the 
Holy Ghost's blessing, or that the letter of the 
Word is the channel through which divine truth 
reaches my mind; nor that Christ's divinity acted 
through the human body which He assumed when 
He was born of the Virgin Mary ; nor that my 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 123 

own immortal soul speaks and acts through my 
tongue, and hands and feet. None of these things 
are shocking to me, or wound my sensibilities, or 
awaken carnal and unworthy thoughts in my 
breast. Why then should I be shocked at the 
doctrine that in the Lord's Sapper there are two 
kinds of elements, the bread and wine, and the 
Body and Blood of Christ, and that the heavenly 
and spiritual employs the earthly and material as 
the medium through which it is conveyed to my 
soul? Do I not see the same beautiful analogy 
here that runs through all the others ? Is it not 
distinctly, and most plainly asserted in numerous 
texts ? Instead of shocking me, is not the doc- 
trine most beautiful, consistent, heavenly, and pre- 
cious to my heart in the unspeakable blessings 
which it imparts, in the nearness to Christ which 
it effects, and in the delightful elevation of my 
soul above the earthly and visible, to the glorious 
heavenly and invisible things which it brings to 
view ? The Lord's Supper would seem to me very 
tame, and even gross, indeed, if I saw in it nothing 
but the gross matter of bread and wine, but when 
I am called to look through and beyond these 



124 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

earthly and material things, to the divine treasure 
which these earthen vessels contain and present 
to me, I am, in the highest degree, edified, com- 
forted, and blest. These heavenly treasures, which 
are in the Holy Communion, on which my eye of 
faith fixes, as I partake of it with my lips, make 
this holy Lord's Table, the most precious of all 
other places in the world to me. Take this away, 
and I would be compelled to lament with Mary 
Magdalene at the sepulchre: " They have taken 
away my Lord, and I know not where they have 
laid him." 

4. One of the commonest and most flippant ob- 
jections we hear, is the assertion that this doctrine 
is Romanism. 

It is want of acquaintance with what this doc- 
trine really is, that leads any sincere man to make 
such a charge as this. They that make it, have 
perhaps never investigated the subject. They 
neither understand what the Bible teaches, nor 
what Eome teaches, nor wherein lies the difference 
between them. Such charges by such persons, do 
not for a moment disturb our composure. We 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 125 

must do, in their case, as did the ancient advocate 
of a cause before Philip, appeal from Philip ill- 
informed, to Philip better informed. I flatter my- 
self that all who have carefully followed me in the 
present discourse, will very readily be able to 
point out wherein the true doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper differs from the false doctrine of the 
Church of Eome on this subject. The difference 
is very great, and very plain. 

Indeed, it is only from this standpoint of the 
true doctrine of the Lord's Supper as it is made 
known in the Scriptures, and confessed by the 
Lutheran Church, that the error of the Church of 
Eome can be successfully combated. This doc- 
trine gives us the whole Sacrament, in both its 
terrestrial and heavenly elements; it does not 
take away the cup, nor does it change and take 
away the bread, and yet it gives us the true Body 
and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It leaves us 
Christ, and does not deem it necessary in order to 
avoid the error of Transubstantiation, to go to the 
other extreme, and banish Christ from his own 
Sacrament. It gives us the whole Sacrament, 
unmutilated, both in its earthly and heavenly ele- 



126 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

merits, just as Christ instituted it, and the whole 
primitive Christian Church believed and practiced 
it. It is also directly in harmony with the words 
of Christ when instituting it, and with the words 
of the Apostle Paul when describing it. Most 
reflecting persons feel that a mere figurative repre- 
sentation does not accord with Christ's words, 
"This is my Bod}'" — "This is my Blood," nor 
with the Apostle's strong declarations, "The cup 
of blessing which we bless, is it not the Commu- 
nion of the Blood of Christ? the bread which we 
break, is it not the Communion of the Body of 
Christ?" and "he that eateth and drinketh un- 
worthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood 
of the Lord," and "he that eateth and drinketh 
unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to 
himself, not discerning the Lord's body." If the 
Lord's Supper consisted of nothing but bread and 
wine, these strong expressions of Christ, and His 
holy apostle, would have no meaning. Why 
should Jesus have said, " Take, eat, this is my 
body — this do in remembrance of me," if no em- 
phasis was intended to be laid on the words, 
'-This is my body," but only on the words, "This 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 127 

do in remembrance of me?" If it is not His 
Body, as He says it is, but only a commemorative 
eating, the words, " This is my body/' might have 
been left away altogether, and all would have 
been expressed that those who take this view, 
contend it does. It would then say, "Take, eat 7 
in remembrance of me." If this is all, why did 
Christ insert at all, the words, "This is my Body?" 
They that adopt this view commit the same mis- 
take that the believers in Transubstantiation com- 
mit, only in the other direction. Transubstantia- 
tion takes away the bread, and professedly makes 
it all body. These, however, take away the body, 
and leave nothing but bread. In either case, we 
have only a part of a Sacrament. If they are 
censurable who take from us the earthly element, 
are those not equally censurable, who would de- 
prive us of the heavenly? Is there not almost 
the same occasion to quote Paul's earnest words 
to them, as there was for him to utter them to 
the Church of Corinth ? What answer can they 
make to him, when he asks, " The cup of blessing 
which we bless, is it not the Communion of the 
blood of Christ ? the bread which we break, is it 
not the Communion of the Body of Christ ?" 



128 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

5. It is objected that the Lutheran Church teaches 
the doctrine of Consubstantiation. 

The persistence with which the doctrine of 
Consubstantiation is charged upon the Lutheran 
Church, in the face of her constant denial of it, in 
her Confessions, and by her theologians, is won- 
derful. It would seem that her opponents act 
upon the principle that a falsehood well stuck to, 
will in the end be accepted as truth. Even Webster, 
in his Unabridged Dictionary, defines Consubstan- 
tiation as the doctrine maintained by the Lutheran 
Church. It will be a conclusive answer to this 
charge, to quote the statements concerning it, of 
some of the oldest and ablest of our theologians. 
I cite from Dr. Krauth's Conservative Eeforma- 
tion : 

Mutter, A. D. 1611, says, "When we use the 
particles 'in, with, under/ we understand no local 
inclusion whatever, either Transubstantiation or 
Consubstantiation." "Hence is clear the odious 
falsity of those who charge our churches with 
teaching that 'the bread of the Eucharist is liter- 
ally and substantially the body of Christ;' that 
* the bread ami body constitute one substance;' 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 129 

that 'the body of Christ in itself, and literally, is 
bruised by the teeth/ and all other monstrous ab- 
surdities of a similar nature. For Ave fearlessly 
appeal to God, the Searcher of hearts, and the 
Judge of consciences, as an infallible witness, that 
neither by Luther nor any of ours was such a 
thing ever said, written, or thought of." 

Andrew Osiander, Chancellor of the University 
of Tubingen, A. D. 1617, says, " Our theologians 
for years long have strenuously denied and power- 
fully confuted the doctrine of a local inclusion, or 
physical connection of the body and bread, or con- 
substantiation. We believe in no impanation, sub- 
panation, companation, or consubstantiation of the 
body of Christ; no physical or local inclusion or 
conjoining of bread and body, as our adversaries, 
in manifest calumnies, allege against us." 

John Gerhard, A. 1). 1637, says, " On account of 
the calumnies of our adversaries, we would note 
that we do not believe in impanation, nor in con- 
substantiation, nor in any physical or local pres- 
ence." " We believe in no consubstantiative pres- 
ence of the body and the blood. Far from us be 
that figment. The heavenly thing and the earthly 

9 



130 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

thing in the Lord's Supper are not present with 
each other physically and naturally." 

Carpzov, A. D. 1657, says, " When the words, in, 
with, under, are used, our traducers know, as well 
as they know their own fingers, that they do not^ 
signify a Consubstantiation, local coexistence, or 
impanation. The charge that we hold a local in- 
clusion, or Consubstantiation, is a calumny. The 
eating and drinking are not physical, but mystical 
and sacramental." 

Oalovius, A. D. 1686, says, " We do not assert 
any local conjunction, any fusion of essences, or 
Consubstantiation, as our adversaries attribute it 
to us; as if we imagined that the bread and the 
Body of Christ pass into one mass. We do not 
say that the Body is included in the bread." 

Baier, J. G,, A. D. 1695, says, "The Sacramental 
union is neither substantial, nor personal, nor local. 
Hence it is manifest that impanation and Consub- 
stantiation, which are charged upon Lutherans by 
enemies, are utterly excluded. There is no sensi- 
ble or natural eating of the Body of Christ." 

Leibnitz, A. D. 1716, distinguished as a profound 
theological thinker, as well as philosopher of the 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 131 

highest order, says, " Those who receive the Evan- 
gelical (Lutheran) faith by no means approve the 
doctrine of Consubstantiation, or of impanation, 
nor can any impute it to them, unless from a mis- 
understanding of what they hold/' 

Buddeas, A. D. 1728, says, "All who understand 
the doctrines of our Church know that with our 
whole soul we abhor the doctrine of Consubstan- 
tiation, and of a gross ubiquity of the flesh of 
Christ. They are greatly mistaken who suppose 
the doctrine of impanation to be the doctrine of 
Luther and of our Church." 

Cotta, A. D. 1779, makes the following remarks 
upon the different theories of Sacramental union: 
" By impanation is meant a local inclusion of the 
body and blood in the bread and wine. Gerhard 
has rightly noted that the theologians of our 
Church utterly abhor this error. The particles 
in, with, under, are not used to express a local in- 
clusion. As our theologians reject impanation, so 
also they reject the doctrine of Consubstantiation. 
This word is taken in two senses. It denotes 
sometimes a local conjunction of two bodies; some- 
times a commingling or coalescence into one sub- 



132 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

stance or mass. But in neither sense can that 
monstrous dogma of Consubstantiation be attrib- 
uted to our Church ; for Lutherans believe neither 
in a local conjunction nor commixture of bread 
and Christ's Body, nor of wine and Christ's Blood." 
These citations are sufficient. We need, and can 
have, no stronger or more conclusive testimony. 

Having now stated the true doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper, and defended it from some of the 
objections with which it is commonly assailed, let 
me hasten to a few practical conclusions. 

1. I will not doubt nor wrangle, but simply be- 
lieve the Word of my Lord, and yield my reason to 
the Supreme Eeason, in this, and all other doctrines, 
and ordinances, and institutions of the Gospel. 

I am not offended because the Christian religion 
has its mysteries. That there should be in it 
things deep and unfathomable, was to have been 
expected from the nature of the subject, and from 
the infinite perfections of its divine Author. It 
would be, to my mind, bare, and meagre, and un- 
attractive, and too much like the production of 
small men, who could not go beyond their own 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 133 

shallow depth, if it had no mysteries. Its pro- 
found mysteries are not only exceedingly inter- 
esting, and reasonable, and even fascinating to my 
mind, but they constitute one of the most satis- 
factory proofs that its author is God, and its origin 
in heaven. I will not, therefore, dispute, and ob- 
ject, and find fault, but simply believe and humbly 
submit. I will take God at His own word, and 
not attempt to explain it away, or raise difficulties, 
nor oppose my own feeble reason to the Infinite 
reason, nor abuse what I do not understand, nor 
labor to make that look absurd which appears so 
only because it is too far above the reach of my 
limited capacities. There are more things in 
heaven and earth than have ever been dreamed of 
in our philosophy. Things are not necessarily false 
because incomprehensible. I will, therefore, not 
argue, but believe. I will not raise objections, 
but receive the truth of God, in the terms in 
which He has himself declared it. Christ has 
himself used the words, " This is my Body/' "This 
is my Blood," "He that eateth my flesh, and 
drinketh my blood." The words awaken in my 
mind neither superstitious feelings, nor Eomish 



134 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

sentiments, nor carnal ideas. They are the words 
of my Lord, and I will use them, and hear them 
used, with the devout and holy reverence which 
they are adapted to produce. 

2. I will endeavor always to commune with the 
solemn awe which the nature of the Holy Communion 
inspires. 

Of all the ordinances of the Gospel, the Holy 
Communion is the most solemn. It possesses the 
highest sanctity, because the whole Gospel seems 
to centre in it; or rather it is the culmination of 
all the doctrines, facts, and precepts of the Gospel. 
" We are at the Lord's Table. We can rise no 
higher in this life. There is nothing beyond but 
heaven." With the ancient Patriarch we may 
say, "How dreadful is this place: this is none 
other but the house of God, and this is the gate 
of heaven." The nature of the Lord's Supper 
produces this solemn feeling. At the communion 
table I am in the presence of God, There I feel 
nearer to God than anywhere else. I welcome 
this feeling. I love to feel that God is near me, 
and that I am near to him. The feeling is hallow- 



THE HOLY COMMUNION. 135 

ing as well as pleasurable. It subdues my sins, it 
hallows my heart, it makes me better, it humbles 
self, it exalts Christ and His ordinances, it lifts 
me above the world, and it brings me nearer to 
heaven and the holy angels. 

3. 1 will sanctify my heart, and commune at the 
Lord's Table, with clean hands and pure lips, because 
the holy presence of the Lord demands it. 

Christ is present there. Nothing unholy or 
unclean should come into his presence. He is 
holy, and He requires all to be holy as He is holy. 
His ordinances are holy, and they tend to sanctify, 
and make holy, those who partake of them. 
There is an especial sanctity pervading the Lord's 
Supper. The atmosphere that surrounds it is 
holy, and it hallows all who come within its influ- 
ence. I will keep the foot, and cleanse the heart, 
when I come to the table of the Lord. I will 
always, when there, remember where I am ; and 
what I am doing. I will consider at whose table 
I am, who is near me. and whose eye is upon my 
heart. I will not tremble as a slave in the pres- 
ence of a hard master, but I will humbly bow as 



136 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

a child before the venerable form of a parent. I 
will cherish the awe which the place, and the 
presence inspire, and I will also entertain the joy 
which the occasion is adapted to awaken. I am 
an invited guest, and although I feel that I am an 
unworthy one, still I know that I am a welcome 
one. Not with awe alone, therefore, but with joy, 
also, will I draw water out of these wells of sal- 
vation. I will sanctify myself, for the feast; its 
author, its nature, its occasion, are all holy. I 
will come with clean hands, and a pure heart, and 
a soul that has not lifted itself up unto vanity. I 
will repent of all my sins, be sorry with true 
brokenness of heart on account of them, weep 
over my great unworthiness, confess and beg ab- 
solution on account of my manifold commissions 
of evil, and omissions of duty, fervently pray God 
to forgive and save me for Christ's sake, and 
humbly renew my vows of piety and obedience at 
His altar, earnestly relying upon the help of His 
grace to enable me to carry away from the Holy 
Communion table, such spiritual strength as will 
make, and ever keep me, a better and a happier 
Christian. 



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